


In Retrospect

by Costellos



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Boss/Employee Relationship, Craig is hardcore crushing on Kyle okay, Drunk Sex, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:00:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7370176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Costellos/pseuds/Costellos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the past two years, Craig Tucker has been working for a media company based in Denver, and for the most part he can't complain: His job is easy, the pay is great, and his boss, Kyle, is nice to look at. Craig is content, and he's pretty sure things can't possibly get any better than they already are.</p>
<p>Then the new guy Stan waltzes in and ruins everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Office

**Author's Note:**

> Office AU - Craig's hardcore crushing on his boss, Kyle. Meanwhile, Stan comes in and inadvertently makes Craig's life a living hell. Drama fueled by misunderstandings ensue.
> 
> This is my attempt at writing something a bit more fast-paced and with shorter chapters. Will update the tags and the rating as needed. Hope you enjoy! And feel free to talk to me on Tumblr (ghostgenocide)!

Even though it’s a fairly chilly day at the end of October, the temperature in the office is a sweltering eighty-two degrees. The air is stagnant and muggy, too warm to breathe without it feeling like a chore, and being shoulder to shoulder with sixteen other griping bodies in a room with hardly any circulation isn’t making things any more bearable.

Craig leans forward, unsticking himself from the back of his chair. He’s hot, and he’s irritated, and his eyebrows are doing a pisspoor job of keeping the sweat out of his eyes, and as if things don’t suck enough already, all three floor fans either don’t reach or stop just short of blowing over him. Craig glares at the bare floor-to-ceiling windows encasing the office with contempt. Any appreciation that he might’ve once had for seamless architectural design had gone right down the drain back around the first time that the AC went out when he first started working there two years ago, because there was absolutely nothing worse than being forced to bake in a makeshift human greenhouse because none of the windows actually open.

Across the office, Bebe fans herself with a copy of _US Weekly._ David loosens his tie as he pokes at the ever-malfunctioning copy machine. Clyde, in the next spot over, has long since abandoned his sweat-stained shirt to let it air dry over the short fiberglass partition separating their workspaces, dress code be damned. Craig is convinced that if he can manage to just sit still enough and not exert any amount of effort, then he won't pass out from heatstroke.

“I think today’s the day,” Clyde says in between a yawn as he stretches his arms up and over his head. He leans back in his chair so that he pokes out sideways from the other side of the partition. Craig looks at him curiously because he can’t recall having read any memos lately.

“What day?”

“The day I actually melt. Holy fuck, it’s so hot,” Clyde bemoans. His bare shoulders are riddled with angry red pimples and the occasional mole. A single bead of sweat rolls down his flushed neck. “Would it kill the dude who owns the building to just replace the goddamn AC already? It can’t be that expensive. It’s probably cheaper than having to fix it every four months.”

Craig squints at his computer when he hears his notification alert. He has twelve unread emails, two of which are from his boss, Kyle Broflovski, in the office straight ahead. Kyle really likes his privacy and always seems to have his blinds drawn. Craig can respect that. If he had his own office he wouldn’t want to see the rest of these miserable cunts, either. He reads the two emails from his boss and deletes the rest.

“Hey, did you get the picture I just sent you? It’s funny right?”

“No.”

“You’re no fun. You never read my emails.” Clyde cranes his neck to get a better look at Craig’s monitor and Craig makes quick work of minimizing the office-wide email from their boss reminding everybody that the company costume party will begin tonight at 7:30 PM in the building’s shared rec area two floors down where the heat and AC both actually work. Clyde makes a face. “So, what, you delete my emails but not Kyle’s?”

“He’s our boss.”

“And I’m your bro.”

“Don’t you have a game to watch or an article to write or something? You better not’ve rushed me on those Brady cuts for nothing,” Craig says, glancing impatiently at his computer clock. 3:05 PM. “And Wendy’s gonna kick your ass if you keep sending personal emails. You know she’s watching you like a hawk after cc’ing those PornHub links to everyone.”

Clyde groans. “It was an _accident.”_

“Still.”

“Yeah, well, sorry for wanting to show something to my best friend, I guess. I just thought you might like them.”

“Like I said. Don’t you have work to do?” Craig asks, because he really doesn’t want to talk about Clyde’s terrible lesbian porn suggestions. For being his supposed “best friend,” Clyde had completely missed Craig’s target demographic.

“It’s too hot to work,” Clyde complains.

When Clyde loses interest in pestering him and decides that he’d rather take a nap instead, Craig goes back to boredly scrolling through Feedly until he finally hears the telltale sound of a door click open. He looks up just in time to see Eric Cartman lingering in Kyle’s doorway for a few seconds before bidding him a mocking farewell. Minutes later, Kyle takes his place.

“Ready, Craig?” He beckons. Craig nods. He grabs his external hard drive, furtively mops the sweat from his face with the back of his hand to make himself look more presentable, and follows Kyle into his office.

Compared to the rest of the fourth floor, Kyle’s office is nice and cool. He’d invested in a portable evaporative air cooler about a year back during a particularly beastly summer, and coupled with the rotating fan he has going, it’s both a blessing and a curse; a blessing because the cool breeze on Craig’s skin is a welcome change from the stale heat of the rest of the office, and a curse because he doesn’t get to witness Kyle with his damp red curls plastered to his forehead.

Kyle shuts the door and sits back heavily into his own chair behind his desk with a frustrated sigh. He only seems slightly irritated, which is considerably less so than usual whenever Cartman comes down from his gilded executive throne room to micromanage and just be an overall pain the ass. Craig likes it when that happens because flustered and agitated Kyle is just as enjoyable as hot and sweaty Kyle, and hey, one outta two ain’t bad.

“You look angry,” Craig points out, hoping to rile him up just a little before he can start his own interrogation. Judging by the way his nose crinkles at the suggestion, Kyle takes the bait.

“I’m not,” he says. The words come out sounding a bit too pointed to be true, but Craig knows not to take it personally. Kyle shakes his head. “Cartman’s just—ugh, he’s infuriating.”

“Was it about the new office?”

As if Craig had said the magic words, Kyle screws his eyes shut and lets out a steady, labored breath through his nose before spiraling off into a short but passionate tangent about how much he hates his own boss.

Cartman had bucked up and purchased a building to move the company and all its acquisitions into about two months ago, and although it’s a lot smaller and needs a lot of work, it still has plenty of space and an all-new heating and cooling system to boot. That’s fine. Great, even. The problem, according to Kyle, is that Cartman has been forcing him to put his “genetically superior accounting skills” to good use by overseeing the whole renovation project, which has been going on for over a month now and isn’t expected to be finished until sometime after the holidays. Apparently Kyle had just found out that he’ll have to forego his Thanksgiving plans to see his family so that he can stay in town and keep tabs on everything, so it’s only natural that he’s a bit peeved.

“I honestly don’t know what he wants from me. I’m just an editor,” Kyle reasons when he’s through letting off some steam. “Why can't he just do it himself? Or make Butters do it! That’s what assistants are for, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“I swear, it’s like he exists for the sole purpose of making my life a living hell. Piece of shit.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even be talking to you about these things,” Kyle apologizes. Craig wishes he wouldn’t because he thoroughly enjoys getting to see this side of his seemingly straight-laced and hot-headed boss. “Anyway,” Kyle begins after taking a few seconds to compose himself. “So, how are things?”

Most employees would be terrified to be in Craig’s current position, but everyone knows that Kyle’s not like that. Kyle likes to call everybody one-by-one into his office on Fridays to talk about how things had been with work that week. Craig never calls out on Fridays.

“Fine,” he says as he usually does, because it’s true. It’s always true. He leans forward and slides his external hard drive over to his boss. Kyle’s brows shoot up in surprise.

"You’re finished already?"

"Yep."

"This is everything? The pictures, too?"

"Mhmm."

"Oh, wow." Kyle seems awestruck. He takes the hard drive and turns it around in his hands as if he’s handling a precious gem. “That was really fast. Didn’t I tell you to take your time?”

“I did,” Craig lies. In reality he’d been up late the past three nights splicing and editing all of the images and video footage he’d amassed over the past month from attending various political rallies around Denver, where he followed Kyle around and played cameraman on his off days in return for a free lunch and the chance to see Kyle outside of his work clothes.

Being one of the only two people in the office with professional backgrounds in media and film production, Craig doesn’t go out into the field all that often since he’s usually tied to his desk editing videos on the regular—which is fine, since he definitely prefers sending Stoley out to do the grunt work instead. Sometimes Stoley’s busy though, and Craig doesn’t have a choice but to accompany his coworkers to film an interview or capture something specific. Thankfully those days are far and few in between, and for the type of website that he puts together material for, there really isn’t all that much to do aside from editing interviews, sports plays, and rehashing already-aired news clips or the occasional viral video since most of the website’s content takes form in articles and lists. Special requests from Kyle—such as this one—are a different story.

“Dude, you’re the best. Thanks,” Kyle says with a grin that serves to make Craig’s gut twist at the sight of it. He doesn’t even care that Kyle totally sounds like an immature fourteen-year-old boy rather than his boss when he calls him that. “Now I can finally publish that piece I’ve been working on forever. Maybe even tonight if I skip the party. Just in time for election day.”

“That’s cool. Hopefully the shots are alright.”

“You’re kidding, right? They’re probably amazing. They always are. I can’t wait to check them out,” Kyle gushes as he gingerly tucks the hard drive away into his brown canvas messenger bag for later. “You’ve got a much steadier hand than Kevin and you do the best editing work out of everyone in this building. Not to mention you’re quick, too. That’s why everyone comes to you for help, you know.”

“Thanks.”

“Speaking of editing, is everything alright?”

“What?”

“I mean, I know you said you were fine, but editing is a lot of work, and you’re usually always so busy—especially when you’re constantly picking up the slack for those other guys, too.”

Those Other Guys consist of the four other “companies” that Cartman owns and houses in the same building. Craig uses that term loosely because he’s still not entirely convinced that Cartman’s crowdfunding company directly below in suite 3A isn’t actually just some sort scam, and because his failing music streaming service in suite 3B is bound to crash and burn any day now. The rest are all niche websites, the largest being the one that Craig works for in particular—think New York Times meets BuzzFeed meets VICE, except not as popular and with too many stories that read like actual real life Onion articles to seriously be trusted as a viable news source—and Craig just feels stupid referring to websites as companies when they publish ridiculous articles such as, “How to Get a Sugar Daddy in 10 Days,” (Bebe Stevens, Beauty and Gossip), and, “Should Cage Fighting Replace the Presidential Election? Duh,” (Clyde Donovan, Sports), no matter how successful they might be.

But Craig is confused, because even though it’s true that he does take on some additional work here and there, it’s mostly just to keep himself busy; a good portion of his days are spent reading comics and watching Netflix, ultimately doing little more than keeping a seat warm, and Kyle knows that. He _enables_ it. So Craig’s not really sure what the hell Kyle’s talking about.

“I’m fine,” Craig insists.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t think you could use an extra pair of hands to help ease the workload, maybe?”

“What’s this all about?” Craig asks, growing suspicious. It’s not unusual for Kyle to dote on him—whether it’s because Kyle likes him or if he’s just worried that Craig might someday snap or something, Craig doesn’t know—but never before has Kyle ever suggested hiring another editor.

“I just don’t want you getting burned out,” Kyle says.

“Well I won’t.”

“Alright.” Kyle nods and sits back in his chair. It’s obvious there’s something else on his mind by the way he worries his bottom lip, but he doesn’t say anything, choosing to stare down at a packet of stapled papers in thought instead. When the silence between them starts to feel awkward, Craig goes to stand up. Then Kyle asks the most ridiculous question: “Do you think the website would benefit from a pets and animals sections?”

“Anything would benefit from a pets and animals section.”

Kyle laughs. “I figured you’d say that. You sound just like my best friend,” he says. Craig doesn’t know who Kyle’s best friend is but he imagines them to be quick-witted and well-read like Kyle.

Kyle sighs and slides the stapled packet into a manila folder labeled **Job Applications.** He hands it to Craig. “Do me a favor and send Clyde back in here? And if it’s not too much trouble, could you take this up to HR?” he asks. “Make sure you give it to Wendy.”

Clyde is not easily woken up and Wendy eyes him the second he steps out of the elevator, but Craig manages. When he finally returns to his desk, Clyde is already fast asleep once more, squashing the opportunity to ask what was so important that Kyle had to talk to him twice about. Craig’s curiosity is short-lived though, since Kyle had apparently decided to emerge from his office for the first time all day while Craig was off running errands and is now currently leaning over the side of David’s desk, palms flat and hip cocked to the side as he chats amiably among a few of his surrounding employees. Kyle’s fitted olive green pants leave little to the imagination, and with Clyde out of commission and nobody to block his view, Craig is welcome to stare at his boss’s ass without shame. Bebe does, too.

When the work day’s over and it’s time to leave, Craig waits until almost everyone else is gone before he gathers up his camera equipment and shakes Clyde awake. Together they take the elevator alone with Kyle and Jimmy, who are always the last two out of the office. Craig likes to use this time to examine Kyle more closely, especially when he’s busy looking at his phone, like today.

“So are you fellas going to the c-costume party?” Jimmy asks once they hit the ground floor.

“Oh, shit. That’s tonight, isn’t it?” Clyde asks, then yawns. “I dunno. I’m kinda sleepy. Craig?”

“I don’t have a costume.”

“Me neither. Wanna hit up Wall-Mart real quick and see what we can find?”

“God no.”

“I feel ya. Yeah, I think I’d rather go home and crash to be honest,” Clyde says as he holds the front door open for their disabled coworker like a good Samaritan. Kyle can’t hear since he’s too far ahead and has his headphones in, and Craig is too busy watching the wind whip through his short auburn curls as he rolls down the sleeves of his thick cable knit sweater to care about whatever else Clyde and Jimmy have to say.

Maybe someday out there in one of the infinite universes that Craig believes exists, Craig will chase Kyle down and catch him at his bus stop—finally ask him out to dinner or the planetarium or something, or even just a movie—but not this one. And that’s fine. Craig is nothing if not a realist, and realistically, keeping this safe distance between them is probably for the best. Because relationships are hard, and Kyle’s probably too much of a stiff to date one of his employees anyway, and life’s not some cheesy office romcom where everything turns out alright in the end; Craig knows you don’t shit where you eat, and believe it or not, he actually does like his job. So for now, he’s content with just this.


	2. The Cafe

There's a lot that Craig's learned about his boss over the past two years from their end of the week chats, such as Kyle's borderline irrational hatred for bananas—which, he'd actually learned about by mistake. Being a connoisseur of sorts when it comes to candy, Craig always has something sweet tucked away in one of his desk drawers, and he’ll never forget the way Kyle’s face had twisted in disgust when he’d bitten into a piece of banana-flavored Laffy Taffy that Craig had offered him without first reading the label. That was also the day he learned that Kyle was diabetic.

Craig knows a lot of other things about Kyle, too; that he enjoys listening to NPR during his lunch break, and that he’d apparently kicked Cartman’s ass on multiple occasions back when they were kids; that he had to have a kidney transplant when he was just nine years old, and that he has an adopted brother from Canada; that he’s a diehard Denver Nuggets fan, and that he thinks The Cure’s _Disintegration_ is the best album ever.

Craig also knows that Kyle is one-hundred percent, undoubtedly and certifiably gay.

It’s not like it’s obvious or anything. Kyle doesn’t exactly ooze sexuality, and he’s never outwardly admitted that he likes men, either. It’d be stereotypical to chalk up knowing simply because of how neat Kyle is and how he always smells so nice and clean despite very much being a guy, and Craig’s pretty sure that the rumor about Kyle having drunken hate-sex with Cartman in the fourth floor utility closet that one time during a Christmas party the year before he started working there is just that—a rumor. If anything, Kyle’s almost familial relationship with Wendy from HR is probably the only thing that has ever struck Craig as being bit strange, considering the fact that Wendy seems exactly like the type of girl that Kyle would be interested in, but even that doesn’t matter anymore because Craig already has all the proof he needs.

“Finally caved and made a Grindr, huh?”

Craig swifty closes out of the app and looks up to find the cafe busboy, Kenny, leaning over his shoulder with a lopsided grin. His apron is covered in coffee stains and his hands are filled with empty mugs and plates from past customers.

“So what if I did?” Craig snaps defensively.

“Nothing,” Kenny says. “Just surprised you actually took my advice for once.”

“I’m just checking it out.”

“Pfft. That’s what they all say.”

Craig scowls as Kenny takes the seat across from him after setting the dirty dishes down on a nearby unoccupied table. He wouldn’t mind so much if Kenny had just asked first, but then again Kenny’s never cared about intruding before.

Craig’s known Kenny for about three months now, ever since he started working the second shift here at the little 24-hour cafe that Craig often frequents in the evening after work or whenever he needs to get away from his roommate and best friend, Clyde. Unlike his boss, Craig can’t say that he knows all that much about Kenny aside from the basics, that he’d moved to Denver about a year ago and that he unironically watches NASCAR. They only ever see each other a few times a week and their conflicting schedules keep Craig from actually having to concede to Kenny’s annoyingly persistent requests that they hang out sometime, but for the most part he thinks that Kenny is alright. Kenny's the one who’d told him about Grindr.

“Grindr?”

“Yeah. It’s like Tinder for gay guys,” Kenny had said. “My roommate uses it. He’s gay too. Well, bisexual, but whatever.” Then he shrugged. “Actually, hey, are you into redheads?”

“I don’t need a dating app.”

“I’m just saying, everyone’s using it. He’s only had it for like a week so far but he’s already gotten a ton of messages. He’s too chicken shit to actually meet up with anyone, though. Figures."

Craig had tapped out around that point. He wasn’t going to be persuaded into using some stupid hookup app by a guy who he was willing to bet had contracted at least two different STDs at some point in his life. Craig was content with his guinea pigs and his admittedly-weird one-sided pseudo-relationship thing he had going on with his boss, and he had no intention of changing things anytime soon. Besides, his phone’s memory was almost full from all the pictures he had saved, anyway.

But then Craig thought about it—because if Grindr really was as popular as Kenny was making it out to be, then there was probably a chance that Kyle was using it, too. Kyle was no stranger to online dating and Craig knew that; he’d once found the remnants of an old deactivated OKCupid account belonging to one “K. Broflovski” from South Park while doing a simple Google search for Kyle’s LinkedIn profile before, so it really didn’t seem like such an unlikely possibility. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to just check and potentially even confirm his deep-rooted suspicions about his boss’s sexual orientation. So one night while binge watching Firefly, he did—and he was left wishing that he’d downloaded the dumb app sooner when his suspicions were indeed confirmed less than an hour later.

**Kyle, 24**  
Seen 38 min ago | 5 miles away  
“Looking to meet some new people!”

The description was vague and the picture was from the neck down, but Craig knew it was Kyle the second he saw that charcoal grey Colorado University t-shirt poking out from beneath an unbuttoned red and black flannel; it was the same exact outfit Kyle had worn to work the day he was running late because he’d been up all night with a cold and didn’t have the energy to get dressed, and besides, it wasn’t like there was anybody else named Kyle within a 20-mile radius who was also 5’10’’, Jewish, and, "Ready to start a new chapter in life.” That last line practically reeked of Kyle, and if all of that still wasn’t enough to prove anything, then the distance between them gradually going from a mile to a mere 224 feet on Craig’s short walk to the office one morning _was._ Unfortunately, however, Kyle must’ve realized that someone was more or less stalking him because his profile suddenly disappeared before Craig could get any closer.

When he got to the office minutes later, Kyle had seemed genuinely spooked. Craig couldn't help but feel sort of bad for probably scaring the shit out of him, but at least he finally had some concrete, irrefutable proof that his boss was, in fact, gay. Grindr was definitely worth the 9.21 megabytes he had to free up to download it.

“You look like shit.”

Kenny laughs. “You always know just what to say to make a guy feel good, don’t you?” he says, then pushes his messy blonde hair back out of his face. He slumps down against the back of his chair and sighs. “My roommate just got fired the other day so we’ve been drinking and playing Overwatch all night. It’s pretty good. I haven’t slept yet.”

“The gay one?”

“No, the straight one.”

Kenny has two roommates, the friends he’d apparently moved to Denver to be with. He likes to jokingly refer to them as “the gay one” and “the straight one,” although for Craig it’s the only way he can actually distinguish between the two. Most of his earlier conversations with Kenny had been spent trying to drown him out with his headphones in, so Craig never managed to catch their names.

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. They finally had enough of him refusing to euthanize the animals so they canned him.”

“Euthanize?” Craig lifts a brow. “Did he work at a kill shelter or something?”

“Ha! That guy wouldn’t last a _week_ at a kill shelter,” Kenny says, then yawns. “He was a vet tech. Didn’t I ever tell you?”

“I don’t remember.”

“More like you don’t listen.”

Craig can’t argue with that. He shrugs and looks back down at his phone, opening Grindr and skimming through the sea of profiles, many of them blank and nameless like his own. It's been a few weeks since Kyle had deleted his profile after that little “stalking” incident, but Craig still likes to log in once in awhile to check and see if maybe Kyle’s made another. So far he hasn’t.

“So you meet any hot guys yet or what?”

“I told you, I’m just checking it out.”

“Mhmm. Right.”

Craig glares at Kenny from over his idle laptop screen. Kenny stares back, except he’s wearing that godawful smirk of his and wiggling his brows suggestively. Craig exhales sharply through his nose and puts his phone away. “For the record," he says, "that stupid app is nothing like Tinder."

“So you use Tinder?”

“I don’t use anything.”

“Well, Jesus, don’t I feel bad for all the poor guys who are missing out.”

“Did your other roommate ever stop dicking around and meet up with anyone from Grindr yet?” Craig asks, not really caring but wanting to change the focus of the conversation from himself. Kenny makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat and bounces his shoulders.

“Nah. I don’t even think he uses it anymore,” he says, as if he knew that was what would happen. “Something about it being too dangerous, or invasive, or whatever. I dunno.”

“I mean, it kind of is.”

“How so?”

“It shows you how far away you are from other users,” Craig explains. “Like just now it said the closest person was only a few hundred feet from me. It probably wouldn’t be too hard to track someone down if you seriously wanted to.”

“Yeah, he said something about that after he was done chewing my ass out for twenty minutes for ‘trying to get him killed’ or whatever. Like it’s supposed to be my fault he didn’t think about disabling his location,” Kenny complains, although he sounds a lot more amused than upset. “Honestly, I never would've even told him about Grindr if I knew he was gonna freak out and accuse me of attempted murder. He's such a spaz sometimes."

“Wait, _you_ told him about Grindr?”

“Well I was originally gonna talk him into making an eHarmony account, but I heard some guys talking about Grindr on the bus to work and like—seriously? ‘Grindr?’ C’mon, that just sounds so much cooler,” Kenny says. Craig just stares at him. “What? He’s never gonna get over his stupid crush if he doesn’t at least _try_ to meet other people.”

“I guess,” Craig eventually concedes. He hadn’t been expecting an explanation. He already knows the story about Kenny’s roommate and the unrequited crush they have on one of their coworkers, or IT guys, or whoever; it’s just that Craig had been under the impression that Kenny had learned about Grindr from his roommate, and hearing that it was actually the other way around came as a bit of a shock—although in retrospect, he thinks he should’ve known. “You probably should’ve just went with eHarmony if that’s the case, though. Grindr doesn’t really seem like it’s good for anything besides hooking up.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s the best way to get over someone,” Kenny says. "Besides, he _needs_ to get laid. Poor guy’s so high strung, I’m pretty sure he hasn’t had his dick touched in months.”

“Wow, I really don’t need to know that.”

Kenny laughs. “What, are you a prude?”

“No. I just don’t want to hear about your sad roommate’s dick problems.”

“Well that’s too bad, 'cause you’re just his type," Kenny drawls with a toothy grin. "Tall, dark, and boring as fuck.”

“Not interested.”

“Jesus Christ, man, what are you doing!” Kenny’s manager shouts from somewhere out of sight. Craig glances towards the front of the cafe to see his childhood friend, Tweek, poking his head out from the back storeroom, eyes wide and fixated on the carefree blond sitting across from him. “We've got a rush coming in!”

Kenny rolls his eyes. "Dude, Tweek. Chill. I'm just taking a quick five minute break while the shop's still empty, alright? Relax.” He waves his hand as if to shoo away his neurotic boss’s worries. This does not placate Tweek in the least.

“How am I supposed to relax when we’re almost out of clean mugs!” he panics. “It’s almost six o’clock! Do you know what happens when we don’t have clean mugs at six o’clock? We get _fucked,_ Ken! Fucked!”

“But it's Sund—”

“Fucked!”

“Alright, alright! Jeez. I’m coming, you little psychopath.” Kenny groans and pushes himself up. He shoots Craig a look. “Your boyfriend’s a lunatic,” he tells him.

“Not my boyfriend,” Craig dismisses.

Kenny snorts and heads for the front, gently shouldering past a twitching Tweek while mumbling something under his breath to him about having to smoke him out one of these days. Tweek sputters an "Oh, God!" before following after him. Craig wonders how long it'll take for Kenny to realize that he'd forgotten to grab the dirty dishes before Tweek does and has a conniption fit. Tweek’s always been a mess, ever since they'd first met in elementary school.

When Craig is finally left alone, he wakes his laptop and goes back to what he’d been doing prior to getting distracted by ridiculous apps and noisy people, moving the last of the photos from his Canon camera’s SD card to his desktop to then be sorted and organized into their designated and meticulously-labelled folders. The photos aren't of anything special—mostly landscapes, animals, indifferent self portraits scattered among pictures of family and friends—but there are a few candid shots of Kyle that Craig had managed to sneak from around Denver last month when Kyle wasn’t paying attention. The one where he’s trying to take a bite out of a loaded chili cheese dog without making a mess is Craig's favorite.

Craig’s phone vibrates against his thigh just as he finishes sorting through the pictures. He ejects the SD card and pops it back into his camera before he forgets, tucks the camera back into its bag at his feet, and takes out his phone. His screen is illuminated with two new text messages: one from Clyde, and one from Kyle.

**Received 6:02 PM**  
Can you stop at BK or TB on the way home? Hungry af

**Received 5:31 PM**  
Sorry to bother you on your day off, but do you know by any chance if the desk in front of Clyde’s is still broken? Or did it ever get switched out? Thanks again for all the help! The video was great!

The faint beginning of a smirk just barely tugs at the corner of Craig’s lips; he hadn’t even realized that Kyle had texted him earlier. Craig shoots Clyde a quick “Sure,” and lets Kyle know—in more than one word—that the desk is definitely still busted. He also reminds Kyle that talking the intern into armchair jousting with Jimmy’s crutches was Clyde’s dumb idea and that he had absolutely nothing to do with it. Kyle replies back minutes later with an eye-roll emoji and the message, “Ugh, don’t remind me. Poor David. First day at the office and Clyde already maimed him.” Craig doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing.

While the cafe begins to swell with its usual Sunday evening rush, Craig spends the next forty minutes reading through Kyle’s most recent article; it’s a behemoth, clocking in at almost 5,200 words, and Craig’s eyes nearly glaze over just at the title alone. It’s supposed to be the last political piece that Kyle writes for the rest of the year, but Craig knows better than to actually believe that from a guy who double majored in poli sci and journalism willingly. Craig doesn’t care for politics, but he enjoys keeping up with Kyle’s often world affairs-heavy opinion column nonetheless, though he really only skims through for bits and pieces of Kyle’s impassioned rants and sometimes scathing remarks towards whatever, or whoever, pissed him off that week.

Craig’s phone lights up just as he gets to the end of the article. It’s another text message from Kyle.

**Received 6:48 PM**  
So I hear there’s supposed to be a meteor shower next weekend.

Craig doesn’t know what to say to that either, so again, he says nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I actually downloaded Grindr.  
> Don't you dare look at me like that.


	3. The New Guy

November comes and goes just like any other month, and when Craig returns to work the following Monday after Thanksgiving break, he finds the office down a broken desk.

“So, yeah—let’s all give Stan a warm welcome, alright?” Kyle says, grinning wide. He’s wearing a green gingham shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and even with a tie, he still looks oddly underdressed without one of his signature pullover sweaters. Standing next to him is the new employee, Stan Marsh, who gives a small wave and an awkward half-smile. Most of his new coworkers welcome him with open arms before dispersing back to their desks from the conference room where they’d all been gathered to hear the sudden announcement. For some reason Kyle insists that Stan be seated with Craig and Clyde.

“You guys’ll show him the ropes, right?” Kyle asks, seeming both anxious and excited about this new merger. Craig is not amused with having to share his isolated workspace, let alone with someone he’d literally just learned the existence of less than ten minutes ago.

“What is there to show?” he asks back.

“Don’t worry, man. We got him,” Clyde agrees for the both of them, which irks Craig not only because he hates being spoken for, but also because he doesn’t like the way Kyle rests his hand on Stan’s shoulder. Kyle had spent a few extra minutes alone in the conference room with Stan before practically dragging him over to the shiny new desk shoved up against Clyde’s, and now Craig can’t help but wonder what they might’ve talked about to cause this to happen.

“That’s good to know,” Kyle says, chancing a sidelong glance over at Craig, even though Clyde was the one who’d said it. Kyle is met with a look of indifference. He clears his throat. “Okay. Well.” He nudges Stan. “I’ve gotta go talk to Wendy, but just let me know if you need anything, alright? I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“Oh, sure, dude,” Stan says. It’s the first thing Craig’s heard him say so far and already it’s the last thing he ever wants to hear. The word “respect” doesn’t hold much meaning for Craig, but calling your new boss “dude” is just bad taste.

Kyle gives Stan a pat on the shoulder before finally leaving him to fend for himself, but Stan does not seem nearly as nervous as Craig believes he probably should. Stan turns to him the second Kyle steps foot out of the office, lips pursed and ready to say something.

“So you’re a Broncos fan, huh?” Clyde suddenly asks, lifting his chin at Stan’s shirt: a faded, plain black t-shirt with the words **SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS** printed across the chest in orange, the Denver Broncos logo situated in the middle underneath. If Craig had thought Kyle seemed underdressed, then Stan might as well have just shown up in his pajamas. The office doesn’t have a strict dress code by any means, but putting in some sort of effort to look at least semi-professional on your first day of work is only to be expected; even David still wears neckties, and he’s been interning there for almost two months now.

Stan opens and closes his mouth, clearly thrown from his line of thought. Once he catches his bearings, he shifts his attention to Clyde and says, “Dude, hell yeah. Broncos all the way.”

Clyde sticks his fist out. “That’s what’s up!” he exclaims. Stan meets him halfway and knocks their knuckles together. Craig rolls his eyes. “Did you catch the game yesterday? Against the Chiefs?”

“No, but I have it recorded. I had to drive my roommate around to run errands all day so I didn’t get a chance to watch it yet. Was it good?”

“McManus was really off his game, but I mean, it’s definitely worth a watch. Chiefs still got their asses slaughtered either way.”

Craig tries his best to ignore the two resident meatheads as he busies himself with editing a few pictures in Photoshop, drowning out their obnoxious chatter about tackles and plays with the Arctic Monkeys’ artist radio on Spotify. For six whole minutes he’s left alone in his own little world, until his headphones suddenly stop working and The Strokes’ _Machu Pichu_ starts playing through his computer speakers instead. Clyde dangles the unplugged cord to his headphones off to the side.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Stan says.

“Well, he’s being rude,” Clyde says.

“What the fuck? Who’s being rude?” Craig asks.

“Stan’s trying to talk to you but you’re not listening,” Clyde tells him.

“So you yank my headphones out?” Craig asks. He looks at Stan. “What? What do you want?”

“I didn’t catch your name earlier,” Stan says. “You left before we had the chance to meet.”

Craig looks at Clyde. “You couldn’t just tell him my name?”

“I did, but he still wanted to talk to you,” Clyde says.

“Sorry—I didn’t mean to bother you. I know you don’t talk much,” Stan says.

Craig grunts and snatches the cord from Clyde’s fingers. He plugs it back in.

“Is he always like that?” he hears Stan ask before turning his music back on. Clyde just shrugs.

*  *  *

Despite having literally no previous experience writing whatsoever, Stan is assigned to work on sports news with Clyde, as well as the new pets and animals section that Craig hadn’t even realized had been added to the website over the holiday weekend. Craig’s not entirely sure just whose dick Stan had to suck to get that kind of work right off the bat without even having completed an internship, but he’s not about to start asking questions.

Craig stands at the water cooler, an empty paper cup in hand as he watches Kyle chew on his pen cap with furrowed brows through his cracked-open office door. It’s Tuesday, which means that Kyle is most likely proofreading badly-worded and heavily-misspelled guest articles—that, or trying not to burst a blood vessel while looking over more instructions from Cartman regarding plans for the new office that had been dropped off earlier this morning by Butters.

“Hey—finally caught you with your headphones off.”

Craig turns to find the new guy standing behind him with raised brows and the stupidest _gotcha_ smirk painted across his face. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Craig, right? I’m Stan.”

“We’ve already met.”

“I don’t think you ignoring me yesterday actually counts as us meeting.”

“We literally sit right across from each other,” Craig deadpans. “You’re always bothering Clyde because you don’t know how to use the share button on Twitter and you keep staring at me while I work. I know who you are.”

“In my defense, I’m really not that big on social media. I don’t even use Facebook,” Stan says, then forces a self-deprecating chuckle. “And, uh. Sorry about— _that._ I’m honestly not trying to be weird or anything. Getting your attention is just—well, you don’t exactly make it easy.”

Craig glances back at Kyle, who’s now whisper-shouting expletives into his phone receiver, hunched over his desk with tensed shoulders. Cartman’s name is clearly visible on his lips. Craig wishes that Stan would just go away so that he could enjoy the show alone and in peace.

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, hey—I can see Kyle from here.”

Craig crushes his cup and throws it in the trash, abandoning Stan at the water cooler to head back to his desk, where the other half of his soggy convenience store sandwich is still waiting untouched. He sighs. All he wants is to enjoy the last of his lunch break in solitude while Clyde’s still out making a Taco Bell run, but Stan—who plops down at his own desk just as Craig is about to put his headphones back on—is apparently not about to let that happen.

“So where’d you go yesterday?”

“Work.”

“No shit.” Stan laughs. “But you left early. How come?”

Craig lifts up his camera bags by a handful of their straps. “Work,” he repeats, not wanting to go into detail about how Stoley had been out sick yesterday so he had to go film an interview with Jimmy in his place. Stoley’s out sick today, too, so Craig actually has to head out for the rest of the day again after he’s finished eating.

Stan nods, as if this all makes perfect sense. “Do you do that a lot?”

“Why do you keep talking to me?”

“I’m just trying to get to know you, dude.”

“Well, stop.”

Stan, whose patience is clearly beginning to wear thin, starts to say something else but holds his tongue; a wise decision, Craig thinks. It’s already bad enough that his once perfect view of Kyle’s office is blocked thanks to Stan’s ugly mug getting in the way; Craig’s not about to start playing 21 Questions with the guy, too.

“So, hey,” Stan says, “do you have an Xbox One?”

Craig stuffs the last of his sandwich in his mouth, grabs his camera equipment, and leaves.

*  *  *

By the time Wednesday rolls around, Stan must’ve finally taken the hint that Craig wants nothing to do with him because Stan hasn’t tried to say a single word to him all day. This is great, except for one small thing; rather than Stan bothering _him,_ Stan’s been following Kyle around the office all morning like some dopey lost puppy instead—which, Craig decides, might actually be worse.

For the past hour and a half, the two in question have been holed up in Kyle’s office with the blinds drawn shut as per usual, and Craig’s been practically sitting on the edge of his seat, straining to catch inaudible fragments of their muted conversation, because seriously—who the hell does Stan think he is, keeping Kyle tied up like that? Doesn’t he know that Kyle’s a busy guy with things to do? Surely Stan could wait until Friday like everyone else.

A particularly joyous fit of shared laughter jars Craig from his thoughts and fills him with a whole new sense of irritation at the situation at hand. He doesn’t have a clue what’s supposed to be so funny—he can’t hear a thing, even with his headphones off and Clyde actually working in silence for once—but Craig knows he doesn’t like it.

“Where are you going?” Clyde asks.

“Water,” Craig tells him.

“Bring me some?” Clyde asks. “Actually, can you get me something from the vending machine instead? I want a Dr. Pepper. And a KitKat.”

Craig has absolutely no intention of doing either of those things, but he nods to appease Clyde anyway. He loiters at the water cooler with a paper cup in hand for show as he tries to listen in on Stan and Kyle’s conversation. It’s usually a lot easier to eavesdrop from here, the water cooler only being about ten feet to the left of Kyle’s office door, but with it completely closed shut all he can do is just barely make out single words and phrases, all useless without context. Craig thinks that maybe he hears his name get dropped, but he can’t be certain.

Kyle’s door suddenly cracks open, and Craig sees Stan looking back over his shoulder, talking to Kyle just as he’s about to leave.

“Dude, I’ve _been_ trying. It’s impossible,” he says, tiredly, with a groan. Craig, too caught up in wondering what _that’s_ supposed to mean, doesn’t think to look away when Stan turns his head and catches him staring; Stan seems to perk up almost immediately. He turns back to Kyle and jams a thumb over his shoulder, and, after a quick, hushed exchange of words, Stan pulls Kyle’s door open wider and waves Craig in.

“Dude, come in. Don’t be such a stranger,” Stan tells him, as if they haven’t known each other for only about 72 hours. This would probably have to be Stan’s greatest offense so far, ushering him into Kyle’s office like it’s his own. Craig would tell Stan to shove it if Kyle weren’t poking his head out from behind Stan, looking hopeful at the prospect of stuffing a third body into his already cramped office.

“Hey! We were actually just talking about you,” Kyle says.

“Yeah. Kyle was telling me, uh.” Stan looks at Kyle. “About your—work?”

“And that you’re the best editor we’ve got.” Kyle nods. “I showed him the video you put together for my last article the other day. The pictures, too. They were great, right?”

“Yeah.”

Craig is about two seconds from pulling Stan’s firmly-parked ass off the edge of Kyle’s desk. “Is there a reason I’m in here?” he asks, not interested in hearing Stan’s clearly-rehearsed words of appraisal. Kyle and Stan share an unreadable glance.

“Well.” Kyle swallows. “Kevin’s still out, and we’ve got a couple more interviews that need to be recorded. Mostly just Bebe’s, but also the last of Jimmy’s interview from Monday, too—you know, the one with the local stand-up comedian? With the puppets?”

Craig heaves a heavy closed-mouth sigh. Interviews with Jimmy always take forever, thanks to his ridiculous stutter, and Craig isn’t exactly ecstatic about having to sit there and listen to him ask that puppet fucker a million and one more questions.

“Yeah,” Craig still says, either way. “Fine. Alright.”

“You know I wouldn’t bother you unless it was absolutely necessary.”

“I know.”

“Here—why don’t you take Stan with you?” Kyle suggests, sounding a bit too enthusiastic. “Stan’s pretty decent behind a camera, too, you know. He used to help film the morning news back in elementary school.”

“Was that on his resume?” Craig sneers, looking at Stan, who seems strangely as ease with being offered up as a workhorse for someone who may or may not have daydreamed about him getting hit by a bus on the way to work. Kyle just laughs at Craig’s honest-to-God question and shoos the both of them out of his office before Craig has a proper chance to complain about Stan accompanying him on the job.

“You want me to carry anything?” Stan asks. They’re in the elevator now, and Craig’s got his camera bags slung over his shoulder and some loose sound equipment tucked under the opposite arm.

“No.”

“You sure? I don’t mind.”

“I said no,” Craig snaps, and Stan puts his hands up in mock surrender.

Craig keeps his eyes trained on the floor numbers as they light up, until he sees Stan busy himself with his phone from his peripheral vision. Craig takes this chance to finally get a good look at him; about the same height as Kyle, maybe an inch or two taller, solidly built and with inky black hair that falls limp and unstyled over his forehead. Nothing special, but Craig can’t help but wonder if maybe Kyle has a type. There’s something eerily familiar about Stan, both in how he looks and even his scent that Craig sometimes picks up when he passes by, but Craig can’t figure out what it is.

“Hah! Dude, look at this.” Stan leans over to show Craig his phone. It’s just some stupid Vine of two parrots “talking” to one another, but Stan might as well have struck gold with that dumb grin plastered across his face. Maybe just this once Craig would indulge him if under different circumstances, but Craig’s too busy trying to stifle a sneeze as an overwhelming, unfamiliar scent permeates the air around him with Stan’s sudden movement.

“Did you spray something?” Craig asks, pressing his wrist to his nose.

“No?” Stan blinks dumbly at him. He sniffs under his arm, then at the collar of his shirt. “Oh, wait. I shaved this morning. That might be the aftershave balm I use,” he says. “Why? Does it smell bad?”

“It’s strong.”

“Yeah. It’s like, medicated, I think. Or something. I probably used too much.” Stan shrugs. “I dunno, but Kyle says it’s supposed to be good. It definitely stings a lot less than the stuff I used to use, though.”

Craig looks at him. “What do you mean, ‘Kyle says?’”

“He bought it for me,” Stan says. “Sometimes my neck gets really red when I use astringent after shaving, and Kyle said this stuff would help. So far, so good.” He laughs. “But yeah, all jokes aside, it’s not so bad. It doubles as a moisturizer, too, so hey.”

“That’s a weird thing to get from your boss,” Craig says, trying to remember whether or not he’d ever gotten a gift for being newly-hired during his first few weeks of work.

Stan scoffs. “Dude, no,” he says. “The weirdest thing Kyle’s ever bought for me would probably have to be underwear. Or condoms.” Stan considers this with knitted brows. “Yeah, no—definitely condoms.”

Craig doesn’t even know where to start as the elevator lurches to a stop.

“Speaking of Kyle,” Stan continues, wringing his hands. “I, uh. Hope I don’t come off as rude, but I’m just gonna come right out and ask, ‘cause I don’t know how else to say this, but.” He clears his throat. “Are you, you know. _Gay?”_

The elevator dings and Craig steps out, but not before slamming the button for the doors to close so that Stan can’t follow after him.

*  *  *

Craig is officially pushed to his limit just before noon on Thursday when he finds Stan alone in Kyle’s office, sitting behind his desk and mouthing thoughtlessly at Kyle’s chewed-up pen cap while browsing the web for college football scores.

“Why did you even hire him?” Craig asks, after having spent a good ten minutes searching high and low for Kyle, only to find him on the fourth floor, leaning against the HR reception desk. He’s talking to Wendy, who’s got a stack of paperwork in one hand and a bottle of flavored water in the other.

“Good morning to you too, Craig,” she says.

“What are you talking about?” Kyle asks.

“We already have too many staff writers,” Craig continues. “We don’t need him.”

“Oh—this is about Stan, isn’t it?” Kyle sighs.

“He’s not even an intern,” Craig adds.

“Look, I know it’s unorthodox, but Stan’s a hard worker, alright? I know him better than anyone. Trust me,” Kyle says.

“So you're fine with him sitting in your office and using your computer so he can waste time watching football or whatever?” Craig asks. Kyle doesn’t seem nearly as bothered as Craig had hoped he’d be after hearing this, but Wendy lifts a brow.

“Stan’s in your office unattended?” she asks, shooting Kyle a look. “Kyle, you _know_ he can’t be in there. We’ve talked about this. It’s a conflict of interests.”

“I know, I know. Just—” Kyle groans. “Craig? Come here for a second.” Craig suddenly finds himself being led towards the elevator with a hand on his back. When he looks over his shoulder, he sees Wendy watching them. “Listen,” Kyle says, lowly, “let’s try not to talk about these kinds of things here, okay?”

“What things?”

“Things that HR would have a field day with,” Kyle says. “And there’s nothing wrong with Stan being in my office. It’s not like I’ve been gone for six hours or anything. Wendy’s just being dramatic.”

“Then why are you whispering?”

Kyle frowns. He lets his hand fall from Craig’s back. “Stan told me you two haven’t really been getting along,” he says, solemnly, as if that’s supposed to mean something. Craig just wants to know what Wendy had meant when she’d said that Stan being in Kyle’s office alone was a _conflict of interest,_ and why.

“Should we be?”

“I really think you should just try to get to know him.”

“No offense, but you don’t exactly pay me to get to know people.”

“Please?” Kyle begs. “For me?”

“Why do you care so much, anyway?”

“Because I just _do,”_ Kyle says. “Look, we’re having an office mixer tomorrow after work to celebrate his first week, so just—try to talk to him then, alright? Who knows, maybe it’ll be easier with a few drinks to take the edge off.”

Craig wants to ask what the hell the deal with him and Stan is, but he loses wind. “Whatever,” he grumbles, although Kyle probably hears it more as a defiant “Fine,” with how the corners of his lips curl upwards into a smile. Kyle pats Craig’s arm and gives Wendy—who’s still watching them from the reception desk—a nod and a wave before stepping into the elevator. Craig waits until it comes back up empty and does the same, minus the whole Wendy bit. He came up here looking for answers, but now he’s leaving with at least twelve more questions; thirteen when it’s finally time to go home and he notices Kyle walking towards the parking lot with Stan.

“He does know the bus stop’s that way, right?” Craig asks.

“I think he rides with Stan,” Clyde says.

“Since when?”

“Since, like. Monday? You’d probably know that if you weren’t so busy skipping out on work all week,” Clyde says. Craig opens his mouth to protest this but Clyde cuts him off, bumping their shoulders together. “Dude, I’m just kidding. Chill.” He laughs. “But yeah, Stan’s pretty cool. I’m glad Kyle decided to hire him. It’s awesome having someone else to talk to,” he says, then quickly adds when Craig looks at him, “Not that talking to you isn’t awesome, too, but like—you know how you are sometimes.”

“No, I don’t.”

_“Dude.”_

“And what do you mean you’re glad that Kyle decided to hire him?” Craig asks. “Are you saying you knew we were getting a new employee?”

“Wasn’t it obvious?”

“How the hell was that supposed to be obvious?”

“Kyle said he was asking everyone if they needed help last month,” Clyde explains. “I told him it didn’t sound like such a bad deal, having someone else to work on the sports section with. He seemed really happy. Said he knew the perfect person for the job, too. So, yeah.” He shrugs.

Craig glares at him. “I’m actually going to murder you.”

“Okay, but can it wait until after tomorrow? I wanna try and talk to Bebe first,” Clyde says, unfazed. Craig’s empty threats are nothing new, but little does Clyde know that Craig holds him entirely accountable for his newfound Stan problem, and that Craig is very seriously considering smothering him with a pillow tonight in his sleep.

The sound of an old beat up truck roaring past pulls Craig from his murderous thoughts, and as he watches Stan drive off with Kyle in the passenger seat of his dated red Ford pickup, Craig thinks that tomorrow might be the first Friday he ever misses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having a fucking blast w/ this story, guys.  
> lmao what could possibly go wrong @ the office mixer that Craig definitely would never in a million years attend, right?? *x-files theme song*


	4. The Welcome Party

Craig, of course, does not miss work on Friday.

Honestly, he’s not entirely sure just who he might’ve thought he’d been kidding. Craig knew good and well that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he’d seriously consider calling out and passing up on his sacred fifteen minutes alone with Kyle. The only two reasons Craig would ever call out on a Friday are because he’s either dead or dying, and even in the second case he’d probably still manage to figure out a way to make it to work.

Craig swirls his cup of Sprite as he leans against the door to Kyle’s office. The party is in full swing, complete with noisy group conversations, mixed drinks, and an appropriate-for-work Spotify playlist that Kyle had put Craig in charge of curating the second he walked in through the glass double doors of their office suite. Wanting to impress him, Craig had put some honest effort into at first. But when lunch rolled around and he learned that Kyle would be holding off on the one-on-one discussions this week to make time to prepare for the party, Craig lost the small amount of patience he’d already been struggling to hold onto and tossed out the half-finished playlist for whatever one came up when he typed the words “office party” into the search bar. Beyoncé’s “Love on Top” probably isn’t what Kyle had in mind when he’d requested something “fun, upbeat, and maybe a little indie?” But then again Craig hadn’t envisioned his Friday night being spent watching Kyle laugh along with his coworkers at whatever dumb story Stan has to tell, so whatever. It’s not like anyone’s complaining.

“Dude, this music sucks.”

Craig looks up from his muted game of Candy Crush to find Clyde standing in front of him. Clyde’s cheeks are flushed and his breath smells like stale pretzels. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Craig says, his thumb hovering over the screen in anticipation of his next move.

“You can tell me who the hell made this shitty playlist ‘cause it definitely wasn’t you,” Clyde says. He seems agitated. Craig figures he must’ve struck out with Bebe—again. “Can I see your phone?”

“No.”

“C’mon, just for a second.”

“No.”

“I wanna see if there’s any Nicki Minaj in there.”

“Hell no.”

Clyde huffs. Craig does not think that Clyde has any right to catch an attitude when Clyde’s the reason that he’s stuck here listening to said shitty playlist since he’s being forced to chaperone the idiot who’d been hell bent on staying after work and chatting Bebe up at the party. Even though their apartment is only about a mile away, Clyde has been known to make terrible decisions wherever alcohol might be involved, and Craig has long since learned better than to leave him to the streets unattended.

Clyde hangs around a bit longer, nursing his vodka and Red Bull as he tries to coax Craig into changing the music. When his cup is dry and it’s clear that Craig isn’t going to budge, he bails and heads for the other side of the office, where the refreshments table is hidden behind Stan and a few other coworkers, Kyle included. Craig had considered sucking it up and playing nice like Kyle had asked him to, but that was before Stan and his dumb welcome party had managed to ruin the only good thing that could’ve possibly redeemed this week from hell.

Craig watches as Stan gives Kyle two shots. After a moment of hesitation, Kyle downs them in quick succession and hisses in disgust. Stan leans in and whispers something to him. He steals a quick glance over his shoulder at Craig, then back to Stan, and holds up a finger. Stan pours him one more. Kyle downs that one, too. From the corner of his eye, Craig notices a mane of curly, blonde hair approaching him on his left.

“Hey there, handsome.”

“Not buying.”

Bebe laughs and smacks Craig playfully on the arm. “Asshole,” she says. Craig smirks. He wouldn’t go so far as to consider them to be friends, but over the past two years they’ve cultivated a sort of wordless bond over their shared mutual interest in a certain redhead, so Craig’s built up a sort of tolerance for Bebe’s annoyingly outgoing and flirtatious nature. There’s also the fact that she’s screwing his best friend on the regular, though they’re not actually dating. Craig wishes she’d put the poor guy out of his misery and just go out with him already.

“You look like you’re having a blast,” she says. The too-tight spaghetti strap tank top she’s wearing has had Clyde practically drooling for the past two hours. Craig doesn’t know what the big deal is, but sometimes he’ll find himself distracted by the bright-red lipstick she’s always wearing. Not tonight, though.

“I’m not.”

“That was sarcasm, hon.”

Craig feels a smug sense of satisfaction when Wendy suddenly shows up and wedges herself between Kyle and Stan, looking angry as she slaps Stan in the chest with a handful of stapled papers. Stan winces and tries to calm her down, but ultimately ends up having to usher her out of the office to talk in private, leaving Kyle alone with his empty shot glasses.

“What’cha lookin’ at, hmm?” Bebe asks as she glues herself to Craig’s side. Craig shrugs her off. “Keeping your eye on the prize, I see.” She grins. “He looks good in jeans, doesn’t he? I wish he’d let loose and wear them more often. I need some new material to work with.”

“He’s gay.”

“Believe me—that boy might have a little sugar in his tank, but he is _not_ gay,” Bebe says. Craig isn’t about to out his potentially still-closeted boss and show her the incriminating screenshots he’d saved, but God does he want to. Bebe needs to realize once and for all that this isn’t a competition.

“What makes you so sure?”

“I have my sources.”

_“Cosmo_ isn’t a source.”

“Says you,” Bebe says. “But no, _Cosmo_ isn’t my source, you dork. Wendy is.”

Craig looks at her. “Wendy? From HR?” he asks. Bebe’s already Cheshire-like grin seems to grow tenfold under his skeptical brow.

“You seem surprised. She tells me everything, you know. We’re best friends,” she says. Craig knows that. He also knows that Bebe has a big mouth, and that literally anything that happens in the office gets relayed to Wendy if she just so happens to catch wind of it. Craig wonders if maybe she has something to do with the reason why Wendy’s always looking at him strangely.

“What did she say?”

“Huh?”

“Wendy. What did she tell you about Broflovski?”

“Oh. Hmm.” Bebe cradles her elbow and presses her index finger to her lips, making a show of pretending to think. She clicks her tongue. “You know what? For the life of me, I just can’t seem to remember.”

Craig stares at her. He’s not sure what bothers him more: Bebe’s teasing, or the implication that Kyle and Wendy had apparently _done_ things; especially after he had so confidently ruled out their weirdly-close but still definitely-platonic relationship. Then again, he could just be jumping to conclusions. Bebe had been pretty vague, after all—and even if Kyle and Wendy _did_ have a fling, so what? It’s not like that suddenly renders the fact that Kyle had a Grindr profile null and void. If anything, his failed relationship with Wendy Testaburger, of all women, only adds fuel to Craig’s already-proven theory that his boss sucks dick; the only thing left to wonder now is whether he’s a top or a bottom. Maybe a switch. Craig can work with that.

“What are you guys doing all the way over here?” Kyle asks, having decided to give up on mingling with the rest of his employees to drop in and interrupt Craig’s train of thought at the worst possible time.

“Nothing,” Craig says.

“We were just talking about how we think you should wear jeans more often,” Bebe says. “You look good in them. Not that you don’t pull off that whole nerdy look of yours or anything, but it’s nice seeing you in something a bit more casual every once in a while.”

“Oh? Well, uh, thanks, Bebe. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Not to mention, your ass looks _great_ in jeans.”

“Bebe, you’ve really got to stop commenting on my ass.”

“I’ll quit when that ass does.”

Kyle covers his face and groans.

Craig listens to the two of them go back and forth like this for about a minute, until Kyle very obviously attempts to lure Bebe away with news of Stan and Wendy arguing out in the hall and the suggestion for her to go and “I don’t know, break them up or something?” Bebe is not nearly as gullible as she might seem, but drama is like oxygen for her, so she narrows her eyes at him suspiciously for only a few seconds before rushing off before she misses anything good. Craig notices Kyle visibly relax once they’re alone.

“So, what are you drinking?” he asks, holding up his own red Solo cup for emphasis.

“Sprite.”

“Just Sprite? Nothing in it?”

“Not a big drinker.”

“Yeah, I’m not either, really. Unless it’s like, wine coolers or something, you know? Like Mike’s Hard. Those are pretty good,” he says. “Even then, I’ll usually only drink to get a buzz, though—not to get drunk. I hate not being in control.”

“That’s not what it seemed like.”

“What?”

“Earlier. With Marsh,” Craig says. “You were throwing those shots back pretty quick.”

“Well, those were celebratory.”

“I don’t think Marsh surviving five days as a desk jockey is anything to celebrate.”

Kyle seems conflicted, although Craig isn’t sure what about. Maybe it’s just because those three shots were enough to muddle his usually sharp mind and equally as sharp tongue. Kyle, who’s still very coherent with only a slight tint to his cheeks, is clearly intoxicated to at least _some_ degree; though he’s nowhere near the White Girl Wasted that Clyde is fast approaching, stumbling over his own two feet and crashing into coworkers as he sings along loudly to “Pump It” by the Black Eyed Peas. Dragging him home is not going to be fun.

“Look, I didn’t talk to him yet if that’s what you came to ask,” Craig says, sort of wishing that Kyle would go away and leave him alone.

“No, I know. That’s fine. I just wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know, anything. Is that okay? I mean, you’ve been standing over here alone for the past two hours doing—what are you even doing?” Kyle leans over to look at Craig’s phone. He frowns. “You’ve been playing Candy Crush this whole time? Seriously?”

“I was playing Temple Run earlier.”

Kyle laughs. “You’re ridiculous,” he says. Craig waits for him to elaborate but he doesn’t. “Okay, so, how about you put the phone down for a while and actually socialize? It’s not gonna kill you, dude. Plus, it’s like, on ten percent. Let it charge.”

Craig considers this. His phone is plugged in, but it’s been fluctuating between ten and fifteen percent all night, unable to charge properly with Candy Crush and Spotify consistently draining his battery. Giving his phone a chance to cool down is probably a good idea, and as long as Kyle isn’t forcing him to schmooze with the rest of the office, then why not? There’s a lot that Craig’s been wanting to ask him about anyway since they didn’t get a chance to talk earlier.

Craig sets his phone down on the ledge of Kyle’s office window and decides to start with the question that’d been bothering him since Wednesday. “Are you sleeping with the new guy?”

Kyle chokes on his drink.

“What—!” he asks incredulously, but goes into a coughing fit. Craig calmly waits for him to finish. “That’s not—what are you—what kind of question even is that!”

“A serious one.”

_“Why?”_

“Because you’ve been coddling him since he got here and now Wendy’s all up on his case. She never comes down here unless it’s serious. She was practically beating his ass with those papers a minute ago.”

“That’s because she heard you say that Stan was in my office yesterday—which, like I already said, isn’t that big of a deal,” Kyle reminds him pointedly. Then he sighs. “Also, apparently someone reported him today and said he’d been eating lunch with me in my office. That was a written warning.”

That had been Craig. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Kyle shrugs. “Nothing I can do about it, though. She’s warned us like, three times already. Better her than someone else from HR, at least.”

“Just sucks she’s such a slave driver.”

Kyle scoffs. “What? Dude, no way. Wendy’s awesome. She’s just trying to cover our asses.”

“From what?”

“Jealous employees. Lawsuits. Stan and I losing our jobs. Fraternization in the workplace is a pretty big deal, you know?” Kyle tells him, as if Craig had actually read the employee code of conduct pamphlet he’d received on his first day of work. “I know Cartman probably couldn’t care less, but his investors are a different story. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cartman was the one who’d sent that anonymous email to Wendy today. I mean, he’s known Stan as long as I have, but he’ll do anything to piss me off—he hates it when I have a life outside of work,” Kyle says. “But yeah, no. Wendy? I’ve known her forever. She’s great.”

Craig doubts that. “Clyde says you two would be cute together,” he says. He’s pretty sure Bebe was bluffing, but still. Kyle only snorts into his cup.

“Hah! I’ll have to tell Stan that. See what he thinks.”

That hadn’t been quite the reaction he’d been expecting—or much of one at all, really. And what the hell does Stan have to do with anything? It’s been nothing but Stan, Stan, Stan, this whole week.

Craig had figured after Wednesday’s weird elevator ride that he and Kyle definitely had some sort of history—whether as high school friends or old college roommates or something dumb like that, Craig doesn’t know, nor does he care. That still doesn’t explain the questionable level of secrecy the two of them seem to share just from looking at one another; especially not when Kyle had nearly choked to death when Craig even brought up the idea of the two of them sleeping together.

Then again, Kyle never did say it _wasn’t_ true. Kyle probably would’ve reacted the same as he did either way. Craig wonders if maybe their history is more present than past.

They stand there in silence, tension growing thick as neither of them apparently have much else to say. Kyle tries to make small talk, but Craig shoots him down each time with curt, disinterested answers; sometimes Craig prefers for Kyle to be seen and not heard, and it only takes so many failed attempts at striking up a conversation before Kyle gets the hint and shuts up.

When Craig’s had his fill of side-eyeing his boss, who seems anxious as he sips at his drink with his free hand crossed over his chest and tucked under his other arm as his eyes dart around the room, Craig figures he’d rather get back to finishing the level in Candy Crush he’d been working on before everyone decided to come over and bother him; but just as he swipes to unlock his phone, the office door swings open and Stan waltzes back inside. Craig had almost forgotten about him. When Stan gives him—or Kyle?—an acknowledging nod before being redirected towards Jimmy and David by Clyde, who catches him off guard with a hearty slap on the back, Craig decides that, yes, actually, there is something he’d like to talk to Kyle about—getting a goddamn simple yes or no answer to his question.

The door creaks open behind him and a startled noise that he would never admit to making escapes him when he’s suddenly being dragged backwards into Kyle’s dark office, his cell phone and (thankfully) empty Solo cup being left to gravity’s mercy on the other side of the door; Spotify momentarily disconnects, but Hanson’s “MMMBop” is unfortunately too powerful to be destroyed. Craig would complain, but it’s not until he’s shoved up against the wall behind the door with Kyle’s mouth pressed to his that he even fully processes exactly what the hell is happening—and when he does, he decides that Kyle could throw his phone into Marston Lake and he wouldn’t give a single fuck.

Kyle pulls away just before Craig can finish gathering his bearings enough to lean in and actually reciprocate.

“Craig?”

“What?”

“Why aren’t you—” Kyle frowns. Craig licks his lips. “How come you’re not—?”

“What?”

Kyle hesitates. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.” Kyle steps back and lets his fists fall from where they’d been bunched up in Craig’s shirt. Craig silently laments this loss as he watches Kyle with knitted brows, growing annoyed. “I thought you—I mean, that’s what she told me? But I guess—”

“What the hell are you talking about? Told you what? Who?”

“Nothing. Nevermind.” Kyle sighs, carefully raking his fingers through his hair. He reaches for the door. Craig has had it up to _h_ _ere_ with him tonight. “C’mon. We should, um. We should probably go back outside before people start—!”

Craig yanks Kyle back to his chest and shuts him up with a kiss. For all his fussing just seconds ago, Kyle does not seem to have much else to say as he pulls Craig down by his shoulders to deepen it after his own shock wears off. Craig allows this, but makes it a point to keep hold of the reigns this time around as he keeps Kyle in place with his fingers tangled in messy red hair; Kyle may be his superior, but this isn’t something he’s willing to relinquish control over, not right now. Then Kyle grinds their hips together, and Craig’s knees nearly buckle as he ducks and groans into Kyle’s neck.

If someone were to ask Craig what the worst possible scenario would be in terms of royally screwing up his strictly observed work-life balance, being dragged into his boss’s office for a drunken, impromptu makeout session during a tacky office party with a cheesy playlist would probably be it. Yet here they are, dry humping each other like horny teenagers in a cramped bathroom stall while the muffled sound of some still-outdated but infinitely-more makeout worthy Top 40s chart topper thumps outside, and Craig is having a hard enough time remembering to _breathe_ let alone remembering his three-foot rule as he rips the collar of Kyle’s sweater to the side to lick at his clavicle. Because Kyle is starting to get hard, and Craig is too, and, well—if that’s the road they’re about to take, then Kyle’s desk better be as sturdy as it looks.

Kyle reaches down and starts to fumble blindly with the button of Craig’s pants. Craig kisses along his jaw in silent encouragement. Kyle’s skin is smooth, and he smells just as good as he always does; a mix of light cologne, his own natural scent, and something new that Craig can’t quite place—fresh and cucumber-y and just barely there. Familiar.

Craig shoves Kyle away when he realizes it’s Stan’s aftershave.

“Wha—?” Kyle blinks. “Craig?” The light filtering in from his office window hits him in a way that would probably make Craig want to try his hand at poetry or some other dumb shit if the rationale he thought he’d left outside with his phone hadn’t just slapped him across the face like a jilted lover. He’s got about three seconds to think of something to say before Kyle starts freaking out.

Two seconds in and there’s a loud crash outside, followed by worried gasps surrounding Clyde’s name. As if on instinct, Craig pushes past a dazed and confused Kyle and throws the door open. Clyde is face down on the ground, groaning and twisting aimlessly in a puddle of spilled alcohol, pretzels, and half-empty liquor bottles, one of them shattered. Behind him, the plastic refreshments table is on its side, and one of Jimmy’s crutches are on the floor next to a flipped-over office chair. Stan is standing awkwardly off to the side with Jimmy’s other crutch in hand.

“I told him it wasn’t a good idea,” he says when Craig looks between them. Craig sighs and kneels down next to his best friend, pulling him to sit upright. He should’ve known better than to leave Clyde alone for even a minute.

“Clyde, you idiot,” Craig grumbles. He pats Clyde’s cheek. Clyde grimaces and cracks an eye open.

“Don’ do that,” he slurs.

“Can you stand?"

“I tried to get him to stop but he wouldn’t listen,” Stan says.

“Dumbass.” Craig tugs Clyde to stand. “C’mon. Get up.”

“Uh-uh.”

“For fuck’s sake, Clyde. You’re sitting in glass. Get up.”

“I—” Clyde hiccups. He winces. “I don’ wanna.”

“Um. Hey, do you need some help?” Stan offers.

Craig yanks Clyde to his feet and catches him against his chest when he loses his balance. Clyde complains in the form of unintelligible moans, but he soon gets over it. Craig would rather dislocate his own shoulder before asking Stan for anything.

“What’s going on over here?” Wendy, who apparently _didn’t_ leave earlier, asks. Craig feels as if someone had poured a gallon of ice water down his spine when he turns to find her watching him, standing next to a giggling Bebe. Great. How is he supposed to get Clyde out of this one.

Craig’s answer comes in a flurry of red and navy blue making a dash for the back door.

“Kyle? Dude, wait! Where are you going!” Stan shouts. Kyle doesn’t stop, just throws himself into the heavy door before disappearing around the corner and down the stairs. Stan shoots Craig an uneasy glance before chasing after him.

_“Kyle!”_

With everyone’s attention momentarily averted, Craig pulls Clyde’s arm around his neck and books it for the hall as quickly as possible; he doesn’t slow down until they’re outside on the sidewalk, far away from Wendy and the prospect of unemployment. Whatever unavoidable conversation the future holds will have to wait until Monday.

Clyde gags.

“I think I’m—”

“Oh, no. No. Don’t.”

Clyde hurls all over his and Craig’s shoes.

It takes longer than it should to hobble back to their apartment, the freezing cold and Clyde’s puke breath killing whatever arousal Craig might’ve still had even after everything that had happened; and by the time they reach the front door, his flagging erection is completely gone, though the warm memories of how Kyle’s lips felt against his own definitely aren’t. So after dropping Clyde off on the couch and taking a quick shower, he falls back into his own bed with a relieved sigh and closes his eyes. He falls asleep palming himself through his boxers, thinking about the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one.  
> Enjoy it while it lasts, Tucker.
> 
> Thayer's witch hazel cucumber aftershave smells so good btdubs. 10/10 would recommend.


	5. The Talk

_December 5th, 2016_

Thirty-two minutes after 9:00 AM, Craig’s shoes squeak against linoleum as he finally shoulders his way in through the office doors. He’s late, which is unusual, but then again Craig’s never actually _dreaded_ coming into work before. His stomach had been twisting in ways that had kept him up late last night, staring up at the ceiling as he tried not to think about just how badly he’d fucked himself over for the duration of his employment—that is, if he was still even employed. So to say that Craig is just a bit on edge when Kyle calls him into his office before he even has a chance to set his things down would be an understatement.

“Close the door.”

Craig does. Kyle nods at the empty seat across from him. Craig really doesn’t feel like sitting right now, but he’s not about to make things any more awkward than they already are. Kyle forces one of those weird half-smiles at his decision, which only makes Craig all the more uncomfortable about what’s to come.

“If this is about me being late—”

“No, don’t worry,” Kyle’s quick to assure him. “It’s like, what, your first time ever coming in late? So what? Everyone has those days. You’re fine.”

Craig wishes that he weren’t. “Then what is it?”

“We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Friday.”

Aside from worrying about a surprise phone call from Wendy and having to buy new shoes since the ones Clyde had puked all over were unsalvageable, the weekend had been nice and quiet, with plenty of time for Craig to think about and reflect on what had happened Friday night. Which he did. A lot. He also thought about the repercussions that were sure to come Monday morning, but since those were less than enjoyable and nearly impossible to work with in the shower, he tried not to. There was no point in stressing over it. Craig already knew that it wouldn’t end well, whatever the outcome; all he could do was enjoy the last two days before the storm touched down and his life as he knew it was uprooted. Granted, that had been easier said than done.

“What about Friday?” Craig asks tentatively. Kyle doesn’t answer right away. He pulls his desk drawer open and takes out a sleek, black cell phone that Craig immediately recognizes as his own.

“You left this here last weekend. Figured you might want it back,” Kyle says, holding it out. Craig notices how it just barely trembles in Kyle’s fingers.

“That’s not what you called me in here for,” he says. Kyle sighs.

“It’s not.”

“It’s about the kiss.”

“It was a mistake. We had a little too much to drink—”

“I didn’t drink.”

_“Well I did,”_ Kyle suddenly snaps. He drops his hand when it’s clear that Craig doesn’t plan on meeting him halfway. “I was drunk, okay? And I came onto you, and I—I don’t know. I don’t know what I was thinking. Honestly, I shouldn’t have even been drinking. I told you, I hate not being in control.”

Craig calls bullshit. Kyle was _barely_ drunk; a little tipsy, sure, but nothing like the sentence-slurring, kiss-first-and-ask-names-later intoxicated that he’s trying to make himself out to have been. Kyle knew exactly what he’d been doing when he dragged Craig into his office and kissed him without warning. But Craig’s not trying to argue.

“Is that all?”

“What? Craig, I’m—” He stops, exhales sharply. Craig watches through hooded eyes as he composes himself. “Listen,” he tries again, this time looking calm and collected with his fingers laced together. “I’m sorry, okay? About everything. Just… forget it ever happened.”

“Are we done?”

Kyle blinks. He falters. “Oh. Ah, yeah. Yeah, you can go. Sorry for keeping you.”

Craig stands and starts to leave.

“Wait—Craig?”

He stops.

“I’d, uh. Really appreciate it if you kept this from HR.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

“One more thing?”

“What?”

“Here.”

Craig turns around to see Kyle holding out his phone. “I think you might want this,” he jokes sheepishly. Craig doesn’t laugh. He takes his phone and leaves.

Despite his calm and collected exterior, Craig’s heart is pounding harder than it ever has before—harder, even, than when Kyle had asked to speak with him alone—which is odd. He should be relieved. It’s easier to breathe without that ominous sort of cloud suffocating him that seemed to billow out from underneath Kyle’s office door, and it doesn’t feel like he’s trying to swallow sandpaper under Kyle’s equally-as-anxious gaze. But he’s not.

“Everything cool?” Clyde asks, spinning around in his chair to greet Craig with concerned brows. Craig drops his bags on the floor next to his desk and flops back into his seat with an affirmative grunt. “What’d he want?”

“Nothing.”

“Really? He was asking about you earlier. Seemed pretty freaked out if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Oh, _ha-ha._ Very funny.” Clyde rolls his eyes. “Seriously though, dude. You alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be.”

“I dunno. You look kinda pissed.”

“I’m not.”

“Riiiight,” Clyde drawls. He goes back to reading over his working rough draft for a total of five seconds before swinging back around. “Okay, but, like—he didn’t say anything about me, did he? About Friday? ‘Cause Wendy hasn’t—”

“No, Clyde, we didn’t talk about you.”

“Cool.” Clyde nods. Craig sighs and reaches down to unpack his things. “Oh, dude, new shoes? When’d you get those?”

Craig stops fumbling with the buckle of his camera bag to glare up at him.

The next fifteen minutes are spent getting his workspace set up for the day, uploading Jimmy’s raw interview footage into his editing program and responding to emails while it finishes finalizing; he drowns out Clyde’s noisy typing with his headphones until then. Craig’s nagging thoughts, however, are too loud to be silenced.

Of course Kyle would want to pretend as if nothing had happened. Why wouldn’t he? There’s nothing between them worth breaking the status quo for. He’d even said so himself, that last Friday had been a _mistake._ Sure, Craig would beg to differ on semantics when Kyle seemed pretty intent on shoving his tongue down his throat, but whatever—it doesn’t matter. It’s better this way. Safer. Craig still has his job, his 401k, his free Amazon Prime subscription; if anything, the odds had turned out in his favor. The grim reflection that stares back from the black loading screen of his monitor does not seem to agree.

“Are you covering the Broncos game from this weekend? Stan? Dude, hello?” Craig catches Clyde ask over the partition during a bout of silence while equalizing the interview audio. He doesn’t look. Craig is not a paranoid person by any means, but he’s well aware that Stan has been watching him ever since he came in, and now more than ever does he want absolutely nothing to do with him.

Turns out the reason Stan looks so familiar is because Craig _has_ seen him before. A lot, actually. This realization had dawned on Craig at a less than ideal time, while swiping through Kyle’s publicly-tagged Facebook photos late Saturday night for—ahem. _Inspiration._ Seeing the two sitting side-by-side, both shirtless and laughing on the edge of a pool, probably should’ve annoyed Craig more than it actually had; but after the series of unfortunate events that had unraveled the night before, having to block out Stan’s nipples was but a minor inconvenience, not unlike his entire existence. Of course, when Craig was back in his right state of mind fifteen minutes later, Stan’s status of “minor inconvenience” was bumped back up to “obnoxious,” then further up to “pain in the ass” when he remembered how Stan had chased after Kyle out of the office like he was some damsel in distress.

Slack, the company messaging app that Craig hardly ever uses, chimes in the background. It’s a direct message.

**smarsh**  
We need to talk

They really don’t.

Craig minimizes the window without a second thought and goes back to editing Jimmy’s interview. Slack chimes again, this time twice. Craig does his best to ignore it until it chimes a third time. He caves on the fourth.

**smarsh**  
Hey  
Look up for a second  
Are you getting these?  
Craig?

**ctucker**  
No.

**smarsh**  
Look up

**ctucker**  
No.  
Stop bothering me.

**smarsh**  
Dude, what's your problem?  
Why are you ignoring me?

Craig can’t figure out how to mute the conversation so he logs out. Two minutes later a desktop notification pops up for a new unread email. Craig reflexively clicks on it without reading the preview.

**Stan Marsh**  
(no subject)  
Are you free after work?

Craig finally looks up, if only to shoot Stan an exasperated glare. Stan looks right back, albeit with less malice and more curiosity in his ocean-blue eyes. His brows are raised expectantly as if he’s waiting for Craig’s answer. It comes in the form of a middle finger and his email address being blocked.

* * *

 A long day spent avoiding Stan more than actually working ends with Craig in his usual spot at the cafe. It’s empty, save for a few teenagers huddled up in one of the corner booths trading insults over a game of Magic, and part-time busboy full-time flirt Kenny McCormick is taking full advantage of the downtime to have an introspective quarter-life crisis while draped dramatically across Craig’s table.

“Do you like your job?”

“Could be worse.” Craig carefully pulls his _Birdwatching_ magazine out from underneath Kenny’s arm when he shifts before it can get any more wrinkled. He puts it on the chair next to him. “Why?”

“Just asking. You never really talk about it.”

“Am I supposed to?”

Kenny doesn’t answer, just props himself up on a fist with a sigh. He looks out the window with a sort of wistful sadness about him, the light flurry outside adding to the illusion. “Do you ever feel like you’re just wasting time?” he eventually asks. “That you should be doing something different? Something more—fuck, I dunno. _Ambitious?”_

Craig imagines himself in charge of his own film production studio. “Like what?”

“Selling drugs. The hard stuff, though,” Kenny says without missing a beat. Craig just looks at him. “What? Do you have any idea how much an ounce of coke costs? People are willing to _pay_ for that shit, man, especially in a city like this.”

“Yeah, we definitely aren’t on the same page.” Craig goes back to tapping away on his laptop, a signal that he doesn’t want to take this conversation any further. Kenny doesn’t get the hint.

“I told you about how I used to sell ecstasy back in high school, right?”

Craig does not usually care for Kenny’s ridiculously hard-to-believe childhood stories, but Kenny's pointless rambling on about his unofficial title as the school drug dealer and his first night ever spent in jail help keep Craig from over thinking, so today he welcomes them. He pretends not to listen as he discreetly google’s how much an ounce of coke costs until Kenny stops mid-sentence to check his phone when it beeps.

“C’mon, man. Not right now.” He groans when his phone beeps again with another incoming message before he can even scroll down through the first massive block of text that Craig can’t quite make out. “Can’t this wait till I get home?”

“What’s up?”

“It’s my roommate,” he explains while thumbing out a reply. “He’s freaking out.”

“The vet who got fired?”

“Vet _tech._ And no, he’s fine now.”

“Oh.” The gay one, then, by process of elimination. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything. It’s complicated.” Kenny sighs. “I guess something happened with that guy he’s into and—honestly? I don’t know. I’ve been working doubles all weekend so I’ve barely had a chance to catch up on the whole situation, but he’s been pretty, uh. _You know,_ these past couple of days. I guess whatever happened wasn’t so good.”

Craig quirks a brow. “What happened?”

“Well unless you feel like reading this fuckin’ _book_ he sent, I told you, I dunno. But—” Another message. Kenny deflates. “He’s asking for my advice.”

Craig patiently waits for Kenny to finish reading through the messages, watching as Kenny’s expression twists from one of mild inconvenience from having his story interrupted to something akin to pity. Kenny winces when he reads the last line.

“Well, _he_ fucked up. Big time.”

“That bad?”

Kenny sighs. “You have no idea,” he says. “The way he makes this guy out to be seems like he doesn’t like him. He sounds like a dick. I dunno what to tell him without hurting his feelings.” Kenny scrolls back through the messages once more with knitted brows as he worries his bottom lip. Then he hold out his phone. “You wanna weigh in on this, maybe?”

Craig might be uncharacteristically interested due to wanting to be distracted by his own shitty circumstances, but by no means is he desperate enough for that. “I have enough problems of my own.”

Kenny chuckles and withdraws his phone. “Yeah, I hear ya.”

When Kenny decides that the best course of action is to call his roommate and talk things out, he disappears into the supply room with what he tells Tweek are intentions to “stock up for the evening rush.” Craig decides to pack up and head home, where Clyde should most likely be on the couch playing video games as long as Bebe hasn’t already snagged him. Craig hopes that he’s not too late.

As Craig heads towards the door while shooting Clyde a quick text telling him to stay put because he’s bringing pizza home for an impromptu movie night, he bumps into another person on their way inside.

“Whoa! Sorry about—Craig?”

Looking up from his phone, Craig sees the stupefied face of Stan Marsh, who still has one foot outside of the shop. Craig makes an attempt to maneuver around him and leave, but Stan sticks out his arm to stop him.

“Move.”

“No way, dude. We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Craig insists. This time he tries to duck under Stan’s arm but Stan blocks him again. “What, did you follow me here? Are you stalking me now?”

“What? No, I came to see my friend.”

“Good for you. Now _move.”_

“Not until we talk.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“C’mon, man, don’t be like that. Just five minutes, okay? And I’ll leave you alone. Promise.”

Craig simply stares at Stan, but Stan doesn’t budge. Craig groans and shoves past him with a mumbled “fine.” Stan follows suit, close on his heels as Craig pushes through a small congregation of people standing around on the sidewalk beneath a streetlight. It’s not snowing anymore, but the small amount of new snowfall has already been muddled and filthy.

“Did you block me?” Stan asks. Craig keeps walking. “Hey, do you think we can stay around here? I don’t wanna go too far. I’m waiting for someone.”

Craig stops. Sighs.

“Fine,” he concedes but makes no effort to meet Stan back near the cafe. Stan makes up for this by joining him on the corner. He seems a bit miffed but that’s not Craig’s problem.

“Did you block me?” Stan asks again.

“What do you think.”

“Look, Craig, I don’t know what your problem is with me, but—”

“You’re wasting my time. That’s the problem.”

“I said five minutes, didn’t I?”

“Unfortunately.”

Stan rolls his eyes and heaves a painstakingly-labored sigh; he’s definitely miffed. Craig can’t help the sense of smugness that courses through his veins at so easily exposing Stan’s true colors when Kyle’s not around. Craig never trusted him for a second.

“Whatever. Just—I wanted to talk about what happened last Friday. Okay? It’s—well, uh. It’s kind of important.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but nothing happened.”

“I know what happened with you and Kyle.”

They look at each other.

“I said nothing happened,” Craig reminds him bluntly. Carefully. But Stan apparently isn’t in the market for bullshit this evening because the subtle warning goes right over his thick skull.

“Kyle already told me everything.”

“Then there’s not much else for us to talk about, is there.”

Stan watches him with an expectant brow, as if waiting to catch the smallest giveaway that he’s hiding something. Craig can’t figure out what Stan’s angle is here. Is he trying to be threatening? Intimidating? Craig’s not sure, but Stan’s doing a horrible job either way.

“Are you gay?”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

Stan scoffs. “Well I dunno, dude. You could be, like, bi or something. Like Kyle, you know?” He shakes his head. “You don’t have to be such a dick about it.”

“Broflovski’s bi?”

“Yeah?” Stan blinks. “Does it matter?”

“No.”

“Oh. Are you sure?”

“What’s with the interrogation?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to talk—about what happened,” Stan says with a shrug. Craig wants to tell him to hurry up and spit whatever he has to say out already, but he holds his tongue. He can practically see the dusty old cogs in Stan’s head struggling to get a start, and interrupting Stan’s neanderthal-esque thought process would probably only end up dragging things out longer than necessary. Craig would prefer to get home sometime within the next six hours.

“Kyle’s a really good guy, you know,” Stan eventually says, which is just as random as a starting statement as it is redundant because everyone already knows this; it’s common knowledge.

“Your point?”

“That he’s a good guy?”

“Are you telling me that, or are you making a suggestion? Because I can’t tell.”

“Listen,” Stan says. “I’m just looking out for him, okay? He deserves the best, and last week—that was really shitty. You know? He was really upset. Kyle likes to act tough and, I mean, yeah, he is, but—” Stan purses his lips. Exhales. “Look, I’m not trying to start anything. Kyle already told me to just leave it alone. All I’m saying is that he might not be important to you, but he is to me, and I’m not going to just stand around and let some unappreciative jackass jerk him around and take advantage of him. Understand?”

Craig would be surprised at Stan’s sudden growth of a backbone if he weren’t too busy trying to decipher just what exactly Stan might be insinuating. Regardless, unlike Stan, he can take a hint. If Stan wants Kyle, he can have him.

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

Stan relaxes his shoulders, transforming back into his usual unassuming and oblivious self. “That’s good to know. I’m glad.” It’s hard to believe that just a second ago Craig might’ve actually found him even the least bit imposing. Pathetic. “Sorry again, dude. Like I said: no hard feelings. Right?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. See you tomorrow?”

As much as Craig would love for that not to be the case, it’s not like there’s anywhere else he can go. So he gives an acknowledging hum when Stan nudges him goodbye before dashing back to the warmth of the cafe. Kenny’s shit-eating grin when Stan steps inside is hard to miss, even from two shops down.

Since Craig never managed to finish sending Clyde that text, Craig returns home to an empty apartment with a large supreme pizza in hand. He spends the rest of the night alone browsing the jobs board on Craigslist while the pizza sits on the counter, untouched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't beta this chapter at all because I'm a lazy sob so I apologize for any errors and whatnot.


	6. The Invitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Apologies for taking so long between updates. I still have every intention of finishing the story (it's half-finished, anyway), but my chronic illness has been kicking my ass the last year and a half, and to add insult to injury it's really hard to focus on anything for more than two minutes. But I'm still here and still alive. So let's roll.

_December 30th, 2016_

The next three weeks pass about as smooth as sandpaper and as quick as a turtle with two broken legs—one front and one back, so it’s mostly just twisting itself in some weird little half-circles rather than making any real progress on actually getting somewhere. Not the best metaphor he’s ever come up with, Craig thinks, but it gets the point across; that basically, everything sucks.

And by everything, Craig _means_ everything. Things with Kyle were at an all-time high in terms of awkwardness, even more so than the Monday after Stan’s welcome party. Kyle has since seemed to have made it a point to avoid having any sort of close contact with him, going so far as to even call off the past three Friday evaluations. So not only did Craig waste the last three Fridays at work when he could have stayed home and slept in, but Kyle had also closed off the only mechanism that Craig could have used to try and smooth things over with him. Not that he wanted to, but still.

Kenny’s been another thorn in Craig’s side—or at least he _would_ have been if Craig knew where the hell he was. For weeks that blonde fuck had been nowhere to be found, like he’d just suddenly up and disappeared into thin air. Craig was unaware just how much he’d come to rely on Kenny’s stupid acquaintanceship when he found himself alone in that café with nobody to bother him. Granted he eventually turned up one afternoon when Craig decided to stop in for a quick breakfast bagel before work. Apparently he’d started working the first shift, which explained his sudden disappearance, but not exactly why Tweek had absolutely no recollection of him ever working there when Craig had asked him where the hell Kenny was. “I died,” was Kenny’s answer. Craig knew he was just high off his ass in a dumpster somewhere, but an elaboration would have been nice.

Then, of course, there’s Stan.

“Congratulations, dude! That’s so awesome!” Stan gushes as he squeezes Kyle’s shoulders. The rest of the office hesitantly builds up into an applause, unsure if they should follow Stan’s hyped up lead or rather their boss’s more dialed back and somewhat even sheepish demeanor instead.

Kyle had been nominated for and had won a local media journalism award for that 2016 presidential op-ed piece he’d published back in late October. Well, not _just_ for that one, but it was definitely a defining article. It’s just too bad that Kyle had wrongly predicted the outcome of the election that he’d been so evangelically sure about. How embarrassing.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he insists, side-stepping out of Stan’s hold. “I didn’t even—" He sighs. "It’s just a _local_ award, anyway. Anyone could have gotten it.”

“Okay, yeah, but nobody else _did.”_

Kyle opens his mouth, ready to argue, but sighs and shrugs instead. He knows better, probably. He also knows that time is money, specifically Cartman’s money, and that there’s a whole lot of nothing happening with everyone simply standing around to gawk at some over-glorified paperweight and kiss his ass. So he takes back the reigns and disperses the crowd back to their workspaces before hiding himself and his award away in his office, blinds closed as usual. Craig thinks that maybe he should congratulate Kyle himself since if anyone knows how much blood, sweat, and tears—among other bodily fluids—Kyle shed for that award, even unintendedly, it’s him. Craig logs into Netflix instead.

“—orrow night.”

“Dude, hell yeah! Can Craig come too?“

“Come to what?” Craig had taken his headphones off to ask Clyde if he knew why his queue was full of shitty reality TV shows when he catches the tail end of Stan and Clyde’s conversation.

“Uh.” Clyde looks at Stan, then back to Craig. “Stan and I were just… talking?”

“About last night’s game,” Stan interjects.

“Man, it was crazy. Right?”

Craig is not an idiot, but these two seem to think otherwise.

There’s still about twenty minutes before lunch, which is a potential twenty minutes spent watching Clyde sweat bullets and making the occasional awkward eye contact with Stan, so Craig decides to take off early. It’s not like Kyle would care, let alone even notice, probably. When Craig took a few days off last week without letting Kyle or HR know in advance, neither of them mentioned a thing. Kyle used to at least shoot him a quick “Is everything alright?” text, but not anymore.

Craig settles on grabbing lunch at the café since it’s not too far from the office, plus it’s only 12:11, so Kenny should be there. Which doesn’t really matter in the long run since two steps down the sidewalk Craig realizes that he’d forgotten his wallet at home. All he has is about two dollars’ worth of emergency bus fare change in his pocket, so he sighs and backpedals into the building where, if he’s remembering correctly, there should be a couple vending in the community rec room. For lunch, Craig has an untoasted strawberry Pop-Tart and fountain water.

“What do you _mean_ it’s gonna take another two weeks? It’s already been like four goddamn months! No, shut up, I don’t care! I want my fucking building, Kyle!”

Craig doesn’t need any more of a reason to get the hell out of there, but unfortunately the only way out is also the way in, and Cartman’s belligerent shouting is getting louder. So he does what any reasonable individual would do in his situation and wedges himself between the vending machines.

“Just—do your job and hire more workers or some shit! But no more Mexicans! This is last time I hire those taco fuckers for anything. They’re supposed to be MexiCANS, not MexiCAN’TS!”

Keys jingling. Vending machine shaking. Plastic crinkling.

_SLAM._

Craig just about jumps out of his skin.

“Yeah well my office better have _two_ fucking bathrooms at this rate. And one of the toilets better be gold plated. No, fuck that. Solid gold.”

When Craig’s certain he’s alone again, he slips back out from between the vending machines and peeks around the corner out into the hall. Cartman is still barking into his cellphone as he jams his fat thumb into the elevator button, arms full of his vending machine spoils. He must have had a key, because all the KitKats, Milky Ways, and a bunch of other snacks are gone from the vending machine. Craig checks the dispensary bay just in case before heading back up to the office empty handed, until he finds a forgotten half-crushed bag of unsalted pretzels on the ground in front of the elevator. Cartman won’t miss it. He pops it open and eats a few while waiting for the elevator to come back down.

The elevator is slow and outdated, looking like something that’s just barely survived the test of time since the 1960s. It probably hasn’t even been serviced since then, Craig thinks, as he stares at the broken wood paneling and mismatched buttons. That’s probably illegal. Or not. He’s not a lawyer.

“Heya, Craig!” Butters exclaims. Craig, too absorbed in his probably higher than average mortality rate at the current moment, hadn’t noticed him board. “Out for lunch, huh? Aw, I wish I were you. Where ya goin’?”

He probably wouldn’t die if the cable suddenly snapped. The building’s only got four floors, five including the basement, and he’s heard stories about people falling from the rooftops of buildings taller than that and surviving long enough to at least die of internal bleeding later at a hospital. Would Kyle come see in him in the hospital if that happened? Or would he just get an “Is everything alright?” text and a fruit basket? Maybe two fruit baskets if he had internal bleeding.

Butters scurries off when the elevator dings and the doors finally slide open. Craig follows him without a second thought and turns down the opposite end of the hall, hoping to find a mostly-empty office so he can eat his pretzels and watch Netflix in peace, but the only thing he finds is an empty suite and a maintenance closet with a missing doorknob. Craig sighs and heads back for the elevator, already having come to terms with his potential death.

“What did I tell you about hanging out up here!”

“Pfft. Relax, Wendy. I mean, did you even _see_ him? He practically went grocery shopping. He’s not coming out of there for a while. And even if he does, it’s not like he’s gonna care. Unless he still—“

“Ugh, don’t even go there. Trust me, Cartman is the _least_ of my worries. But Lola is going to be back here any minute, and I don’t want to give her anything to gossip about! You know how she is!”

“But we’re in different departments, so…”

“That’s not the _point,_ Stan!”

Craig glues himself to the wall adjacent to the elevator, careful to stay out of sight but close enough to listen in on the conversation. He can’t really see anything, only a floor lamp and someone’s shoe since everything’s sort of obstructed by the half-open door to HR, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on.

Stan’s cheating on Kyle.

With Wendy.

Wait. _What?_

“How are things going with Kyle, by the way? Any progress?”

“What happened to ‘don’t make me have to write you up again!’ and ‘the employee handbook says blah blah blah!’?”

“You know I’m just looking out for you guys! It doesn’t mean I’m not rooting for him. I just—why can’t it be someone else? Like David? He’s _weird.”_

“Dude, you have no idea.”

“Bebe actually told me that he—wait. Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“I don’t know. Like a bag or something? I think someone’s out in the hall.”

Craig slams the elevator button like his life depends on it. His chances of surviving a fiery elevator accident, however dismal they may be, seem much more appealing now. He should have never picked up those goddamn pretzels.

“Craig? What are you doing up here?”

Craig’s heart is pounding a lot harder than he’d ever hope it would for a guy who wears sports merch to work when he turns around to see Stan standing there behind him. Craig’s brain is a jumbled mess, a jigsaw trying to make sense of too many things at once, such as a viable answer to Stan’s question. So he thrusts the opened bag of pretzels towards Stan and says, “Cartman dropped these.”

“You seriously came up here for that? Dude, just keep them. He’s already the size of a small meteor, he doesn’t need to eat those too,” Stan says.

“What’s Craig doing here?” Wendy asks, joining them at the elevator.

“Came to return Cartman’s pretzels,” Stan answers.

“What?”

“So hey, it’s actually cool that you’re here. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” Stan says, suddenly switching gears. Wendy is left perplexed about the pretzels. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” Craig says, because he doesn’t. “Why?”

“Are you free?”

“Stan, no,” Wendy interrupts.

“Wendy—“

“Don’t you think you should talk to Kyle first?”

“Talk to Kyle about what?” Craig asks.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” Stan says.

Wendy huffs and shakes her head, mumbling something about how she can’t believe Stan or whatever before going back to HR. “What’s her problem?” Craig asks when it's just the two of them again.

“Girl stuff, probably. So are you free tomorrow, or…?”

“Should I be?”

“Well I’m throwing a party for New Years Eve, and—“

“No thanks.”

“I figured you’d say that.” Stan smirks. “You didn’t let me finish though. It’s also sort of a surprise 'congratulations' party for Kyle. You know, since he won that award and everything. I know he likes to act like it’s not a big deal, but it kind of is. And honestly, it’d be really cool if you came. I think it’d really mean a lot to him.”

“So that’s what you and Clyde were talking about,” Craig says.

“Ah, yeah… sorry about that. I just didn’t want to get Clyde mixed in with everything. Figured it’d be better if I talked to you alone, you know?”

“There wasn’t even a game last night.”

“Look, are you coming or not?”

Craig stops pointing out Stan’s blatant stupidity for a moment to mull over the invitation. “Is there going to be alcohol?” he asks.

“Of course? It’s New Years, dude.”

Craig should know better by now. He really should.

“Then sure.”


	7. The One Night Stand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) The end of this chapter is NSFW.  
> 2) Sorry, Mom.

_December 31st, 2016_

Craig shows up to Stan’s joint New Year’s Eve/surprise party for Kyle what he thinks is fashionably late. It’s not, and everyone momentarily mistakes him for Kyle when he helps himself through the front door.

“Surprise!”

“That’s not Kyle?”

“False alarm, guys. It’s just Craig,” Stan’s voice rings out above the disillusioned chatter. Judging by the lack of attention and blunt objects being thrown Craig’s way, nobody cares. Things are already going better than he’d expected.

Stan’s apartment is small, the kitchen and living room essentially being one large open space. It’s a cluttered mess, with DVDs and video games and textbooks strewn across and underneath the coffee table, and a small three-chair dining table pushed up against the wall near the front door covered in unfolded clothes. Craig’s never been here before but it feels like he has. _Smells_ familiar, like coffee and cologne and the more immediate cacosmia of body odor, alcohol, and other questionable office-related scents like burning fax machine and unchanged cat litter from having all his sweaty, buzzed coworkers stuffed into a 700-sq. ft. box.

Stan eventually makes his way over with two beers in hand. “You actually came!” he shouts over the music. Craig is more than aware that he had just walked three miles through a brewing snowstorm to get there. “Kyle should be home soon, so just hang tight. Want a beer?”

“Kyle lives here?”

“Yeah?” Stan says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, which it isn’t. But it starts to make sense when Craig notices a pair of Kyle’s shoes by the front door and his brown canvas messenger back hung over the back of a dining chair. “Wait, you didn’t know?”

Craig shakes his head.

“Huh. Sorry, dude. I thought I mentioned it yesterday. Hope it’s not a problem.” Stan holds out a perspiring beer towards him again. “Beer?”

“No thanks.”

“Want something else? We’ve got Fireball, schnapps, vodka—”

“I don’t really drink.”

“Then why’d you ask if there’d be alcohol yesterday?” Stan reaches for his phone with a start. Craig thankfully doesn’t have to come up with an excuse for wanting to know his chances of coming across a drunk, handsy Kyle again. “Sorry dude, gotta take this. It’s Wendy.”

Craig doesn’t even question it.

He should probably feel upset knowing that Stan and Kyle share an apartment—or at least feel _something,_ anyway. But he doesn’t. Maybe a part of him had subconsciously been expecting it, what with their commuting together, and Kyle smelling like Stan’s aftershave, and how there was an 80% chance of them definitely fucking each other on the regular. Regardless, it’s going to take a lot more than that to surprise Craig at this point.

Craig snatches up the recliner in the living room when it becomes available; an ideal spot, where he can simultaneously keep an eye on the front door while also not having to sit next to anyone and pretend to care about what they have to say. Clyde ruins it when he plops himself down on the arm of couch next to him, blocking a good half of his view.

“Dude! I didn’t know you were coming!”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, man? I would have totally waited for you.”

Even with Clyde in the way, Craig can still see most of Stan huddled in the corner of the kitchen with his hand cupped over his mouth. Craig wonders what he’s talking to Wendy about. Craig might not feel particularly passionate about Stan and Kyle’s living situation, but that doesn’t mean he hates Stan any less now than he did the first moment they met; it’s just now he has a perfectly valid reason for wanting to punch Stan in the throat.

Bebe soon joins them, a drink in her hand and a smirk on her lips. She snakes an arm around Clyde’s shoulders as she leans into his side. “Sorry to break you guys up, but I need to borrow him. How about you find your own boyfriend, Tucker?”

Clyde rolls his eyes. “First of all, ew. That’s gross, Bebe. And c’mon—Craig’s like the only gay guy in Denver. Maybe try not to rub it in so much?”

“Oh, you poor, sweet, dumb boy,” Bebe coos. Then she yanks him up from the couch without warning. At least those two are making progress or something, Craig thinks as he watches Bebe drag his clumsy, lovesick best friend out into an open space to dance. Stan makes a frenzied announcement moments later.

“He’s coming! Get ready!”

Everyone settles down, eyes on the front door as if they’re expecting a SWAT team to come barreling through any second. They erupt into cheers of “surprise!” and “congratulations!” when Kyle comes in, startling him before he can finish wondering aloud why the front door was unlocked. Wendy is right behind him.

“What’s going on?” Kyle asks. Stan takes the paper bags from his arms and puts them on the island counter. “Wait, is this—”

“Yup!” Stan beams. “Surprised, right?”

“You sent Wendy and I out into a _snowstorm_ to get _snacks.”_

“Well I had to get you to leave the apartment _somehow.”_

I thought I told you it wasn’t a big deal! And the place is a mess! I mean, you could have at least done the dishes before inviting people over! Or—god forbid— _swept!”_ Kyle’s eyes travel to the dining table as if on instinct. He looks about ready to pop a blood vessel. “And what the hell did I tell him about leaving his clothes everywhere!”

Somewhere in the midst of Kyle’s impromptu spaz attack, Craig had stood up with the unconscious intention of going over to see him. He stops himself before he takes another step. It’s probably not a good idea, judging by not only Kyle’s current heated state but also the fact that Kyle’s been avoiding him like the plague all month. He hadn’t even noticed Craig when he came in.

Kyle’s shoulders eventually relax under Stan’s hands and Wendy’s jovial nudging, and before long Kyle’s sour grimace turns to a grin, which turns to a smile, and he’s laughing along with Wendy at something that Stan’s talking about. Craig watches the three of them from his spot across the room next to a bookshelf, having been displaced from his seat after it’d been taken by someone else. Clyde and Bebe are swapping spit against the wall beside him.

“You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?” Craig imagines Kyle telling Stan, which isn’t very convincing when they’re talking and smiling at one another 30 feet away. Maybe Wendy says it. Ugh. It’s still mindboggling that Wendy would date someone like him. Seriously, what does she see in that guy? And behind Kyle’s back? Are Stan and Kyle even together? Craig still doesn’t know what their deal is, and Stan’s flippant attitude toward him even after learning about how he and Kyle were feeling each other up at his welcome party definitely wasn’t helping.

Craig finds himself reliving that night again, standing around awkwardly with nobody to talk to and his phone almost dead. Maybe he should actually leave this time. It’s only a few long strides to the front door, but it’s making it across the room without drawing Kyle’s attention that’s the real challenge. But then Stan’s pointing his finger at him, and Kyle’s following his line of sight. Kyle’s smile instantly falters and his eyes widen before quickly turning back to Stan.

Craig knew he shouldn’t have come.

Hands practically down each other’s pants at this point, Clyde and Bebe quietly slip behind the door that they had been making out next to, into what’s presumably Stan and Kyle’s bedroom. Craig thinks they have the right idea, at least as far as getting away from the crowd goes. He wishes he could disappear too; tries to keep his eyes on the floor, the couch, the chemistry textbook left open on the coffee table— _anything_ other than his bewildered redheaded boss—but it’s useless. It’s like they’re drawn to each other, constantly locking electrically-charged stares from across the room that never last more than a second or two before Kyle caves and looks away. Saying it’s uncomfortable would be an understatement.

Wendy is gone, having vanished somewhere between awkward glances. Neither Stan nor Kyle seem to care. Stan is trying to push something that Craig can’t quite make out from his position into Kyle’s arms, but Kyle doesn’t seem to be having it. Then Stan leans in and whispers something into Kyle’s ear that makes him light up like a stoplight. Craig’s seen enough shitty romcoms to know where this is going, so he takes a page from Clyde and Bebe and helps himself into the nearest room he can find. Judging by the framed and signed The Cure poster on the wall and the heavy concentration of a subtle, familiar cologne that Craig’s almost become conditioned to get aroused from this past year, it’s Kyle’s bedroom. Either Craig’s got some seriously dumb luck, or the universe is a cruel mistress that wants him to be miserable forever.

As much as Craig wants to snoop around, he restrains himself. He’s already in too deep, standing alone in the middle of his boss’s dimly lit bedroom, oddly relieved in knowing that he doesn’t share it. Or maybe he does? Whatever—it doesn’t matter. Craig plops himself on the edge of Kyle’s bed and plugs his phone into the charger sticking out from behind the bedside table.

**Sent 11:15 PM**  
Let me know when you’re done. I want to leave.

Clyde does not respond, which is understandable given his current situation. So Craig sighs and waits patiently, hands in his lap and eyes on the floor, until his curiosity finally gets the best of him.

“I didn’t think you’d actually be in here.”

Craig yanks his hand out from Kyle’s bedside drawer so fast that he scrapes his knuckles. Kyle is standing there, a red bottle of Absolut in one hand and two shot glasses in the other. “Stan said he saw you come in but I thought he was crazy.”

“I was just—looking for the bathroom.”

“And going through my things?”

Craig does not try coming up with another terrible excuse. In danger of digging himself any deeper by flipping Kyle off out of sheer embarrassment and an overall lack communication skills, he goes to leave.

“Hey—it’s alright, you know. Being in here. I know you’re not really into crowds and parties and stuff, so it’s okay. I’m not mad,” Kyle rushes to get out, standing in Craig’s path. “I just wish you didn’t feel like you have to lie to me. Also, maybe not go through my things without my permission?” He forces a grin. “I mean, that’s kinda weird, Craig. Even for you.”

“…Sorry,” Craig actually manages to apologize without undermining it with an accompanying middle finger or an eye roll. It doesn’t even sound hostile.

“Hey, I said don’t worry about, alright? It’s not a big deal.” Kyle nudges him with his shoulder in passing as he heads toward his bed, a cloud of alcohol wafting after him. He knees his drawer shut. “You were going through the wrong drawer, anyway.”

Craig watches as Kyle sets the bottle of vodka and the shot glasses down on the table before taking a seat, face indifferent and unreadable, as if he hadn’t just openly admitted to having some crazy fucked up sex stuff hidden somewhere around his room.

Wait—was Kyle _flirting_ with him?

“How come you didn’t come over and say hi out there?” Kyle says, suddenly back to his normal self. Craig shrugs, which earns him a frustrated sigh. “Well, either way. I’m glad Stan invited you, even if he didn’t tell me about it… and I’m glad you actually came. Cause you know, after what happened…”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry about all that, you know? I really am. You’re one of the only people in the office that I can really talk to, and I hate things being awkward between us.”

Craig nods.

Kyle’s unimpressed stare and pursed lips speak volumes about how he feels about this one-way conversation, but he should know by now that Craig is a man of few words, if any. He switches gears once more. “We should have a drink. You know, to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Things going back to normal with us. And promising to be honest from here on out. No more lies.”

Craig doesn’t think things are even _close_ to being ‘back to normal’ with them, and he’s even more iffy on the whole honesty addendum. But Kyle seems serious, patting the spot on the bed next to him, and Craig is having a tough time saying no. “I don’t really drink, remember?” he says, making sure to keep at least a foot of space between them. Safety measures.

“Oh, c’mon. One isn’t going to kill you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Well then I guess we’ll see what happens,” Kyle teases, handing him an overfilled shot of vodka. Craig stares down at it with a frown. “I promise it’s not that bad. It’s raspberry flavored.”

“Is that supposed to convince me?”

“Would you just shut up and drink it already? On the count of three. One—”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Craig lies. He _knows_ it’s not a good idea, _remembers_ what Kyle was like that night in his office. Craig would be lying if he said he didn’t come here tonight with high hopes that he’d get to experience it all over again, but now he’s having second thoughts. The possibility is too real. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Doing what? We’re just celebrating our friendship.”

“I’d hardly consider us friends.”

“Then what about celebrating me winning my award?”

Craig groans.

“Just one shot, Craig. One!” Kyle begs. Craig doesn’t even have a chance to contest before Kyle’s playing the guilt card and has him hook, line, and sinker. “You’re the only one who hasn’t congratulated me yet.”

Craig sighs in defeat and throws back his shot. It burns going down and tastes _nothing_ like raspberries. He grimaces. “That’s fucking disgusting,” he sputters between coughs. Kyle downs his without flinching. “How many have you had already?”

Kyle shrugs and reaches for the bottle. “Just a couple.”

“So, two?”

“More like three.”

Considering Kyle’s uncharacteristically indulgent attitude and how oddly laid-back he’d been about catching him red-handed, sifting through his belongings, that makes sense; any other time Kyle would have torn someone’s throat out, favorite employee be damned. Craig’s shot glass is full again.

“I’m really starting to doubt what you said about not being a big drinker because you don’t like losing control,” he says, but holds his breathe and drinks his shot anyway. That one was for the New Year, Kyle had mentioned mid-pour, even though it’s still 10 minutes to midnight.

“Well I couldn’t come in here _sober,”_ Kyle argues.

“Why not?”

“Because you rejected me?”

“No I didn’t.”

“You pushed me off and then proceeded to run away,” Kyle reminds him pointedly.

Oh. Right. “I was surprised.”

Kyle scoffs and pours them both another drink. For health. “God, you’re a terrible liar.”

“I really was, though,” Craig insists in the sincerest tone he can muster, but with how flat and unwavering his voice is it kind of just sounds like he’s calling Kyle a paranoid idiot in the nicest way possible. “And I didn’t run away. Clyde broke the table, I couldn’t just leave him there.”

“You still pushed me.”

Because you smelled like _him._ “I said I was surprised.”

“Yeah, well I don’t know why. It’s not like I’ve been dropping hints for like a whole year or anything,” Kyle jokes bitterly. The next shot is for nothing in particular. Craig doesn’t even think about it when he throws it back, and he doesn’t blink when Kyle pours them another. “You seriously haven’t noticed?”

“No, I have.”

“Then… why—” Kyle hiccups. He puts his shot down, unfinished. “Why haven’t you said anything?”

Craig shrugs. “Safer not to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it means.”

Kyle seems to be done drinking for the night, which is good. Craig isn’t all that familiar with how Kyle handles his liquor, and he doesn’t want to have to shell out $50 on another pair of shoes. He should probably throw in the towel, too.

The booze hits him all at once when he leans across Kyle to set his own glass down. It’d only been four shots, but for someone on an empty stomach and who hardly drinks it’s enough to make him second guess his balance. Kyle is too fixated with his phone to notice, the bright glare illuminating his flushed face and glossy eyes. Craig can only imagine how Kyle must feel with seven of them in his system.

Craig tries to peek at Kyle’s phone but only ends up almost swaying into his shoulder. Is he texting someone? Stan? Craig remembers hearing bits and pieces of his hushed conversation with Wendy yesterday. Should he say something about that? Should he tell Kyle the truth, that he’s being lied to? Outside the music fades and the countdown starts.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Can it wait?” Kyle asks, still staring at his phone. “Does it have to be right now?”

“I think you’ll want to hear this.”

“Later.”

“It’s important.”

“It’s almost midnight—”

“It’s about Stan.”

_“Jesus,_ Craig, are you serious right now?” he snaps, speech slurred, slamming his phone face down on the bed between them. “What is it with you and your obsession with Stan? It’s like you’re—” He hiccups. “You’re in love with him or something.”

“What? No I’m not.”

“Then prove it.”

“How?”

Craig is caught off guard once again when Kyle leans over and kisses him without warning, shouts of “Happy New Year!” and obnoxious noisemakers flooding in from underneath Kyle’s bedroom door. Craig’s head is swimming, both in shock from the sudden ambush and the alcohol coursing through his bloodstream, but he doesn’t let Kyle pull away. Not this time. He reaches up and holds Kyle’s cheek. Stan is the last thing on his mind.

Aside from the need to breathe, neither of them break away from the kiss. Kyle tastes terrible, pungent and bitter from the Raspberry-flavored alcohol along with traces of something vaguely sharp and cinnamon-flavored, but Craig doesn’t care; it’s not like he tastes any better.

He’s not really paying attention when he feels a hand slide into his lap, and it’s not intentional when he spreads his legs to let it happen. Kyle pulls back a little, chuckling into their kiss. “You’re honest,” he tells him. Craig’s puzzled expression gives way to something more depraved when he feels that same hand ghost over him, half-hard, through his jeans. He reflexively responds by pushing himself further into Kyle’s hand.

With nobody to interrupt them, one thing quickly leads to another until they’re well past the point of no return. Craig knows he should stop Kyle when he sinks to his knees between his legs, and he’s more than aware that he’s making a huge mistake when he not only lets Kyle unbuckle and pull down his pants, but _helps_ him do it. Whatever reservations he once had about keeping his boss at arm’s length are immediately forgotten the moment Kyle’s lips are wrapped around the head of his cock.

“H-hey,” Craig warns when he’s getting close. How long has it been since he last had his dick sucked? He simultaneously wants to push Kyle away and shove himself further down Kyle’s throat, but he restrains himself by trying to focus his attention on how soft Kyle’s hair feels between his fingers instead.

Just when he thinks he can’t hold on any longer, Kyle pulls off with a wet _pop,_ kissing along the shaft and nuzzling it against his cheek. Craig’s stomach flips, both from having been left on edge and from the pure, unbridled lust in Kyle’s hazy eyes. What Craig wouldn’t give to have a picture of this forever.

Kyle is already back on his feet before Craig can make a decision, and by the time he’s reaching for his phone, Kyle is in his lap. The fact that he’s naked from the waist down doesn’t quite dawn on Craig until Kyle not so gently shoves him back onto the bed; it’s in this position that Craig gets his first view of his boss’s cut cock. He groans when Kyle rubs back against his own when he reaches for something.

“I wanna ride you, so don’t come yet. Okay?” Kyle whispers, slow and languid. Craig swallows and nods. It’d be hotter if he didn’t have to help keep him from falling over while wrestling out of his sweater, but Craig’s not complaining. His dick twitches when he hears a bottle cap pop open.

The adrenaline coursing through Craig’s veins has him both anxious and impatiently excited as he watches Kyle work himself open above him, eyes closed and face twisted in bliss as he grinds his swollen cock over and over against his stomach. This is a new and unexpected side of Kyle that Craig never knew existed. Sure, it’s liquor-induced, but what does that matter? This is really happening. Craig is seriously about to go against the biggest rule he has and have sex with his boss.

When Kyle finally lowers himself onto Craig, it’s only a matter of minutes until he explodes, having been so worked up and on the brink of orgasm already for the past ten minutes; it’s anticlimactic to say the least. He’d probably feel embarrassed if he wasn’t busy digging his blunt fingernails into Kyle’s thighs, trying to get him to stop; but Kyle continues to ride him with reckless abandon, his own needs still unfulfilled, drunkenly oblivious to the fact that Craig is overstimulated and crawling out of his skin. Kyle says something, mumbling incoherently about how good it feels and how big Craig is, but all Craig can hear is his own hissing and the sound of his teeth grinding themselves down to a fine dust with each bounce. There are tears in his eyes. Kyle is actually going to fuck him to death, and every short, breathy moan is just another nail in Craig’s proverbial coffin. Somewhere between the painful second orgasm that Kyle milks out of him and two missed calls from Clyde, Craig is put out of his misery and he passes out.

* * *

Craig wakes up a few hours later to a silent apartment, with his pants around his knees and dried cum on his shirt. He gropes around for his phone, permanently blinding himself when he turns the screen on. It’s 4:23 AM.

**Received 12:43 AM**  
Yo you still here man?? Ready to go?

**Received 12:46 AM**  
Craig?

**Received 12:52 AM**  
OK well nobody knows where you are apparently so I guess you prob went home already.

**Received 3:19 AM**  
Seriously dude where are you?? You OK??

Craig groans and drops his head back onto the bed, causing Kyle to grumble and stir next to him. Craig turns to face him, finally having a peaceful moment to really take him in and admire the curve of his spine, maybe even trace the faded surgical scar along his side. Craig just glares at him, snoring softly and blissfully unaware of the fact that he could probably be charged for attempted murder. Kyle Broflovski is an animal.

Despite this, Craig can’t stay mad at him. Not right now, anyway. He sits up and cards his fingers through Kyle’s messy red hair, careful not to wake him up, before trailing his hand down along Kyle’s bare shoulder; Craig’s heart skips a beat when he lets out a little sigh. It’s a strange but not completely unwelcome feeling, Craig decides, as he pulls the blanket over the two of them.

Whatever illusion he’s trying to sell himself is broken when a dull _thud_ outside the room brings Craig back to reality. He tears his hand away from Kyle as if he’d been burned.

This isn’t his room.

This isn’t his apartment.

This is his _boss,_ the guy who writes his checks, the guy who pays his rent. The guy who smells like another man’s aftershave.

Stan’s aftershave.

Craig shoots up out of bed so fast that he stumbles forward, struggling to untangle his underwear from his jeans and pull them up. This isn’t like last time. Things were really fucked now, completely ruined. He can’t just show up to the office on Monday and pretend like nothing happened, like he hadn’t fucked his grossly-intoxicated boss while his pseudo-boyfriend was in the next room over. There’s no coming back from this. He could kiss his free Amazon Prime subscription goodbye.

The small inkling of rationale fighting to be heard in the back of Craig’s mind is squashed quiet as he gathers his belongings. It doesn’t matter what Kyle and Stan’s deal is; he doesn’t care anymore. Even with the possibility that they really aren’t together and Stan isn’t currently waiting outside to punch his lights out, it’s not like it makes a difference. Relationships are a ticking time bomb, and it’d only be a matter of time until things went south if the two of them seriously gave this a chance. Going forward, Craig doesn’t know what his next move is going to be, but there’s two things he’s absolutely certain of: that a relationship with Kyle is never going to happen, and that he doesn’t want to stick around and find out what _will_ happen when Stan finds them.

In his rush to get out of the apartment without confrontation, he doesn’t notice a familiar head of messy blonde hair turn and call his name from the living room couch.


	8. The Truth

_January 2nd, 2017_

Avoiding Kyle’s persistent texts and phone calls over the weekend had been hard, but coming to accept and understand that his life as he knew it was over had been even harder; and as Craig spent the rest of the holiday weekend locked in his room, he had plenty of time to reflect and think about what his next move would be. In the end, he came to the conclusion that there was only one thing he could do.

When Craig shows up to the office on Monday, it’s in a whirlwind, shoving through the suite doors as if they aren’t made of glass and prone to shattering. The room falls silent as everyone turns their attention towards him, but Craig doesn’t hesitate even for a second. He marches straight for his work station and begins to empty his desk.

“Jeez, dude. When’s the last time you got some sleep? You look like shit,” Clyde chuckles, oblivious to the tension around him. Craig says nothing as he dumps the contents of his drawers into his bag. “Craig? Dude? Hey, wait—what are you doing?”

“I’m leaving.”

“But you just got here?”

“No, I’m leaving. I’m done.”

“Wait, you mean like quitting? Like for real?” Clyde gawks. “But what about—?”

“Craig? Can I talk to you in here for a second?” Kyle asks, poking his head out from his office. He’s visibly anxious, probably dreading the conversation as much as Craig is. Good news for him is that it’s not going to happen. “Craig? Did you hear me? Wait, what’s going on? Why are you packing your things?”

“He says he’s quitting,” Clyde answers, equally confused.

“What? Why?”

Clyde shrugs.

“Craig, is that true?”

Craig says nothing, just heads for the door, whatever camera equipment he could manage to carry tucked under his arm. Kyle calls after him, shouting his name in a near frantic panic. “Craig! Craig, wait! Stop!”

“What’s everybody screaming about?” Stan asks, coming in from the hall with a toasted bagel in hand. He’s blocking the exit. When Craig elbows past him, he grabs Craig by the shoulder and forces him around. “Dude, what the hell—?”

Craig shoves him into the desk behind them.

The two of them stare at one other in the middle of the office among baited breath, waiting to see what will happen. Nothing does. Neither Craig nor Stan makes a move to continue the altercation any further. Anything that needs to be said between the two of them is done so wordlessly, and although Stan looks as if he’d enjoy nothing more than smashing Craig’s face into the watercooler, he only just stands there.

Craig is the first to break their standoff to glance around the room—at Clyde, Bebe, David, and all the other sad, pathetic faces in that stale, crème-colored office—all gawking at him, staring at him, as if he’s some sort of monster. “This is it,” they’re probably thinking, “I knew this would happen.” Their shocked expressions tell Craig all that he needs to know. “He’s finally snapped and gone off the deep end. It was only a matter of time.” Kyle is the hardest to look at out of everyone.

Nobody tries to stop him when he leaves this time, except for some irritated delivery guy that he slams into while rushing to get off the elevator. He doesn’t stop to help clean up the mess.

* * *

**Received 9:29 AM**  
Did something happn? You’ve been acting weird all weekend and now im worried. 

**Received 9:31 AM**  
Kyle is super pissed dude. Are you really not coming back? Were u for real about quitting??

**Received 9:38 AM**  
Should I grab the rest of your stuff?

**Received 9:48 AM**  
Talk to me man…

Craig flips his phone over as it lights up with another incoming text. Ever since he stormed out of the office it’d been buzzing out of control with phone calls and messages, all unanswered and ignored. The fact that not a single of them had been from Kyle is more upsetting than Craig would like to admit.

Wanting to be alone and without a lot of options, Craig had ended up at the café, much to his displeasure. He couldn’t go home to his apartment; that’d be the first place Clyde would look for him. It was too cold to wander the streets, and though the buses were heated they didn’t accept plastic. The only real place that Craig could go for some peace and solitude without freezing to death was the busiest, noisiest place he knew.

He sighs and drops his head in his hands.

_Jingle!_

“Hey, jackass!”

It’s not his given name, but Craig whips his head up anyway. Charging towards him from the biting cold outside is Kenny McCormick, part-time barista and full-time questionable human being. He doesn’t look happy. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kick your ass right now, you fuck!”

“What?”

“You _know_ what!”

Craig thinks about it.

“What were you doing there?” he asks, once it dawns on him that the guy he’d bumped into in the hall was none other than Kenny; that explains the messy brown splotches all over his coat. Craig didn’t even know they delivered.

“I think a better question is what the hell were _you_ doing? Running out of there like you stole something.” Kenny eyes the camera equipment at his feet. “Did you?”

“I quit my job.”

“Still stealing if it’s company property. Not that I’m complaining or anything.”

“What were you doing there?” Craig asks again.

“Besides doing my job, unlike some people I know?” Kenny quips. Then he shrugs. “Just thought I’d be a good friend and drop off some breakfast after everything that happened. Stan just happened to ambush me before I could make it to the third floor.”

“Stan?”

“The vet tech? Well, ex-vet tech.”

Craig blinks. “He was a vet tech?”

Kenny deflates. His initial readiness to rip Craig a new asshole is replaced with visible exhaustion. “Jesus. Kyle wasn’t kidding—you really _are_ dense.”

That’s when Kenny shucks off his coat and pulls up a chair. Yes, Stan had been a vet tech. Yes, the two of them know each other. In fact, they _all_ know each other, Kyle and Wendy included.

“How come you never said anything?” Craig asks.

“How was I supposed to know that the guy Kyle’s always complaining about was you?” Kenny counters. “I didn’t realize you two even knew each other until the other night.”

“At the New Year’s party?”

“No, afterwards. I wasn’t there for the party, had to work late since I took an extra shift for the holiday pay. But I saw you come out of his room when I was getting ready for bed. I tried to say something but you didn’t even notice me. Figured there might’ve been an emergency or something since you were in a hurry, but—"

“Wait, Kyle and Stan are your roommates?” Craig cuts him off when it suddenly clicks. “The gay one and the straight one. That’s them?”

“Do you even listen to me when I talk half the time?”

“Not really.”

“I know I don’t talk about them a lot, but I’ve mentioned them by name at least, like, three times. So if anything, _you’re_ the one who should’ve said something,” Kenny tells him. “I bet you weren’t even listening when I told you I was changing shifts so I could work on my pre-reqs for the pharmacy program at UC.”

That would explain the textbooks. “So, Stan and Kyle,” Craig presses, failing to acknowledge Kenny’s academic ambitions once more. “They’re not…?”

“Fuck no, dude. I told you, Stan’s straight. Or something. Honestly, I dunno anymore, he’s weird. But him and Kyle are definitely not together.”

“Then why does he smell like Stan’s aftershave?”

“You mean that cucumber shit that Kyle bought him for his birthday?”

“I guess?”

“You must’ve caught him on one of his shave days. He usually uses our shit since the guy can barely grow a mustache.” Kenny laughs. “He’s pretty conniving though, buying the stuff he wants and saying that they’re gifts. You know he bought me some cologne once for Christmas? I haven’t even touched it yet and it’s already half gone.”

Now that Craig thinks about it, Kyle hasn’t smelled like Stan’s aftershave since that night at the office. Maybe Kenny’s right. “And Wendy?”

“What about her?”

“Did she and Kyle ever…? Or are her and Stan…?”

“I’d certainly hope the fuck not. I’m the one dating her.”

This is probably the hardest thing for Craig to process.

Thankfully, Kenny is more than happy to explain—not what the hell someone like Wendy is doing with a guy like him, but everything else at least. That yes, actually, Wendy and Stan used to be on-again, off-again, but that was way back in grade school; and how ever since graduation, they’ve just been friends. Close friends, but friends. Same goes for Kyle.

“I think he might’ve had a crush on her at some point way back, but he really just sees her as a sister,” Kenny says after some story about how the two of them had run together on the same ticket for student body president during high school and won. “Can’t really blame him, though. She’s hot.”

The sneaking sense of hopefulness that’d slowly been creeping its way into Craig’s thoughts is crushed when he checks his phone: six new text messages and one missed call. None of them are from Kyle. Craig sighs and lets his phone slip out of his palm to clatter to the table.

“Hey. You alright?”

“What do you think.”

“Aw c’mon, don’t be like that,” Kenny says, prodding him from across the table. “Quit your moping around. You can always go back, you know. He’s probably waiting for you.”

“I told you already. I quit.”

“At least go talk to him.”

Craig doesn’t even validate Kenny’s suggestion with a response. There’s nothing for them to talk about; Kyle has made it painfully clear where he stands without even saying a word, and honestly? Craig doesn’t blame him. Not after spending all that time running away and acting like a jealous, paranoid fool. He kind of deserves this.

After almost a full minute of silence, Kenny exhales and leans forward onto his arms. “Alright,” he says soberly, accepting Craig’s fate for him. “Then what are you going to do?”

Craig shrugs.

“I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more chapter and an epilogue left! Sheesh.


End file.
